Our Transportation Economics Division (TED) serves as the definitive source for economic analysis of agricultural transportation from farm to market. TED experts support domestic and international agribusinesses by providing market reports, economic analysis, transportation disruption reports, technical assistance, and outreach to various industry stakeholders.
Tracking developments in truck, rail, barge, and ocean transportation, TED provides information and analysis on the four major modes of moving food from farm to table, port to market.
Reports of Interest
- 10-2024: Assessment of Critical Transportation and Marketing Roadblocks and Opportunities for Gulf Coast Shellfish Aquaculture (pdf)
- 09-2024: U.S. Food Flows: A Cold Chain Network Analysis of Freight Movements to Inform Local and Regional Food Issues (pdf)
- 09-2024: Transportation of U.S. Grain Modal Share 1984-2022 Update (pdf)
Agricultural Transportation Open Data Platform
AgTransport is a free, open-data platform that complements and enhances our visualization and data products. AgTransport includes dashboards and interactive reports derived from our rail, barge, truck, and ocean transportation datasets. Visualizations on the platform can be filtered to specific modes and market segments, and users can create their own visualizations from the data. Additionally, data can be downloaded in a variety of open formats and include Data and API endpoints to automate the data distribution process.
Grain Transportation
Find analysis and information about market developments affecting rail, barge, truck, and ocean vessel movements of grain.
Containers, Ports and Non-Grain Agricultural Products
Find insights into transportation of other agricultural products and information about the many agricultural products that require special handling and services during transit.
International Transportation Analysis
Find analysis of international transportation, including the latest transportation costs, volumes, and other market developments in Brazil and Mexico; and other related information.
Agricultural Transportation Research and Information Center
Find useful information and analysis on the transportation of agricultural products and the four major modes– trucking, railroads, barges, and ocean vessels– used to move food from farms to our tables and to ports for export to foreign markets. Find results of on-going research and analysis presented in issue papers and presentations, as well as additional resources available by mode and commodity.
Regulatory Representation
Find brief updates as well as comments provided to various regulatory agencies by USDA and AMS, representing the interests of agricultural shippers under the authority of the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938, Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, and International Carriage of Perishable Foodstuffs Act of 1982.
Cooperative Agreement Summaries
Ongoing, in-depth research and analysis helps provide an efficient and reliable transportation system that benefits agricultural and other shippers. The Transportation Economics Division of USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service periodically sponsors cooperative research on transportation matters of importance to USDA stakeholders.
Data
Find datasets that are used in producing many of the Transportation Economics Division’s publications. These datasets are now available in Excel format for the transportation of grain, biofuels, and other agricultural products.
Alternative formats are available at agtransport.usda.gov. USDA is providing this open data visualization platform from a 3rd party vendor. The vendor may have different terms of service than USDA. Use of this resource is optional; users may continue to access agricultural transportation datasets and pdf reports on the AMS Transportation webpage.