Ag Supply Chain Under Pressure Yet Again

COVID-19 is causing yet another challenge in the supply chain of moving Canadian commodities to end-use customers.

Greg Cherewyk, president of Pulse Canada, says there is an unprecedented number of loaded containers sitting at the port of Vancouver.

About 40 container vessels have been cancelled since the coronavirus hit China at the beginning of the year.

“Our west coast transloading community is working really hard to manage through this really difficult time and load the product that they can but they’re completely congested. You’ve got container yards full of loaded containers that they can’t get onto vessels and of course they’re having trouble managing the demand from their own customers right now and meeting future demand for sales.”

He notes about 15% of Canada’s pulse exports are moved by containers.