The barges that carry roughly half of U.S. corn and soybean exports are wearing out faster than the industry replaces them, and the export growth USDA projects will land on a smaller fleet.
CoBank’s Tanner Ehmke and Emmie Noyes put numbers on the squeeze.
The fleet is getting smaller and older at the same time
The inland fleet stood at 19,668 barges in 2026, with an average age of 17.6 years. The industry builds about 410 hopper barges a year and retires 500 to 1,000.
The average inland barge is approaching 17.6 years old, up from 13.8 years in 2016, according to Current Data LLC figures cited by CoBank. Typical useful life runs 25 to 30 years. Over the past 10 years the fleet has shrunk by 1,617 barges, or 7.6%.
The gap between builds and retirements drives the forecast. At about 410 new hopper barges a year against 500 to 1,000 retirements, CoBank projects the fleet at 16,240 barges (about 3,400 fewer barges) by 2035, down 17.4% from today.
Replating helps at the margin. Roughly 100 to 200 barges a year get replated out of a fleet of about 19,000, and the work can extend a barge’s life by 12 to 15 years. But the CoBank analysts point out it does not offset the aging of the fleet.
Export demand is projected to grow into a tighter river system
USDA projects U.S. grain and oilseed exports will rise 9% by 2035, mostly from corn and soybeans. Corn exports are projected to reach a new record by 2035/36. Soybean exports are expected to rise moderately but stay below the 2020/21 record, and wheat exports are expected to rise steadily, with growth limited by competitors’ exportable supplies. Sorghum, rice, barley and oats are projected to stay largely flat.
Much of that growth has to move down the river. Per USDA AMS, inland hopper barges carry roughly half of U.S. corn and soybean exports and a third of wheat exports through the Mississippi Gulf region.
Rail is not a ready substitute. CoBank says railroads can absorb only a small portion of barge traffic and cannot fully replace barge capacity in a major disruption. Low water on the Mississippi and aging locks and dams add risk on top of the fleet problem.
Replacing barges is expensive, and the cost lands on farm-level prices
A new inland hopper barge costs roughly $1 million or more, per industry estimates cited by CoBank. That price is the hurdle for rebuilding a fleet that is retiring more barges than it adds.
Freight is already running above trend. The USDA AMS downbound grain barge rate from Cairo to Memphis on the Mississippi River averaged $20.04 per ton over the latest three months, against a three-year average of $18.37 per ton for the same point in the year. That is $1.67 per ton, or about 9%, higher.
CoBank expects freight rates to trend higher over the long term, but says they remain cyclical, shaped by crop size, demand, diesel costs, river conditions and industry consolidation.
A tighter barge supply can also lower the basis paid to farmers. Without continued investment in fleet replacement and waterway infrastructure, the authors write, higher transportation costs could pressure farm margins, grain basis and U.S. export competitiveness.
