| A recent issue impacting hay shipments in Washington State involves the reduction of container services at the Port of Portland, Oregon. Prior to this change, containers filled with hay were shipped almost exclusively via barge on the Columbia River to the Port of Portland. After reaching Portland, the containers were then loaded onto one of three steamship lines: Hyundai, K-Line, or Hanjin and destined to markets in Japan and China. As of September 2004, Hanjin is the only carrier that calls on the Port of Portland. This research effort collected firm level data on the production, transportation and marketing of hay in Washington and utilizes this information to develop an optimization model of regional hay movements. One alternative evaluated in this... |
