Towboats and barges on the Mississippi River at New Orleans. The tows shown are not identified as grain tows.

Key Points

  • 873 grain barges were unloaded in the New Orleans region in the week ended Oct. 17, 16% more than the prior week; barged grain movements of 522,313 tons were 7% below the same week of 2025.

  • 31 oceangoing grain vessels loaded in the Gulf in the week ended Oct. 15, 3% more than a year earlier, though the 45 expected over the next 10 days were four fewer than last year.

  • Coast Guard low-water restrictions limit southbound barge drafts to 11 feet, 6 inches or 12 feet, 6 inches between mile 869 and mile 303 above Baton Rouge, while St. Louis barge rates ran 20% above last year.

NEW ORLEANS — Barges unloaded 873 loads of grain in the New Orleans region in the week ended Oct. 17, 16% more than the week before, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The harvest is reaching the lower Mississippi in force, but it is arriving in lighter tows and at higher freight rates than a year ago, and barged grain volumes are still running behind last fall.

USDA's weekly Grain Transportation Report, published Oct. 22, put barged grain movements at 522,313 tons for the week. That was 31% more than the prior week but 7% less than the same week last year. Some 344 barges moved downriver through the key locks, 91 more than the week before. At the export end, 31 oceangoing grain vessels were loaded in the Gulf in the week ended Oct. 15, 3% more than a year earlier. The outlook was a little softer, with 45 vessels expected to load over the following 10 days, four fewer than in the same period in 2025. Grain inspections at Mississippi Gulf ports totaled 1.51 million metric tons in the week ended Oct. 15, up 15% from the week before.

The river is also running low. The Coast Guard has low-water restrictions in effect on the Lower Mississippi between mile 869, north of Memphis, and mile 303, above Baton Rouge. Southbound barges are limited to drafts of 11 feet, 6 inches on the upper stretch and 12 feet, 6 inches below mile 585, in tows no more than seven barges wide. Northbound barges are held to 10 feet, 6 inches. A barge loaded to a shallower draft carries less grain, so the same harvest takes more trips.

Below Baton Rouge, the deep-draft channel is holding up. The New Orleans Board of Trade's daily port update for Oct. 22 listed a controlling draft of 50 feet for oceangoing vessels, with one dredge working in Southwest Pass and two in the crossings above New Orleans. Pilots serving the stretch from New Orleans to Baton Rouge were allowing 50 feet up to mile 180 and 45 feet from there to the Baton Rouge harbor, with daylight-only transits for ships drawing 41 feet or more on the upper section. So for the export elevators, the bottleneck is upstream, in how much grain each tow can carry down.

Freight rates are well above last year's, though they eased this week. The St. Louis barge rate for the week ended Oct. 20 was 592% of the 1976 benchmark tariff, or $23.62 a ton, 20% higher than a year earlier, according to USDA. That was down from 673% the week before and 9% below its three-year average. The Illinois River rate was 22% above last year and 8% above its three-year average. Shipping a metric ton of grain from the U.S. Gulf to Japan cost $76.75, up 1% from the week before.

Some of the pressure predates this fall's low water. USDA notes that the nation's dry covered barge fleet shrank by 552 vessels, or 4.1%, in 2025, and that the average covered hopper is approaching 19 years old against a typical 30-year service life. The department expects retirements to rise to between 800 and 1,000 barges a year over the next five years. Builders are responding, though not quickly. USDA cites a $60 million expansion at Heartland Fabrication's Brownsville, Pa., yard that could raise output from 180 to as many as 280 hopper barges a year by the end of 2027.

The crop, meanwhile, keeps getting bigger. USDA's October crop report, summarized in its Grain Transportation Report, forecasts a 2026-27 harvest of 16.03 billion bushels of corn and 4.56 billion bushels of soybeans, up 234 million and 27 million bushels from September's estimates, with export projections raised as well. If realized, the soybean crop would be a record. More grain moving through an older, smaller fleet on a low river could keep rates firm through the peak of the season, on top of other harvest-season costs.

That matters for Louisiana agriculture and the river trades that serve it, from the elevators in the river parishes to the tugboat operators, fleeting yards, stevedores and pilots who handle the traffic. Gulf loadings running slightly ahead of last year suggest export demand is still there. Over the next few weeks, the test is whether upriver conditions let enough barges reach the Gulf to fill those ships on schedule, or whether elevators end up waiting on grain while freight costs eat into the spread between Midwest farm prices and Gulf export bids.

USDA's next weekly Grain Transportation Report will show whether the jump in barge unloadings held up as the harvest peaked.

Photo: David Brossard / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0