Re-engineering Grain Logistics: Bulk Handling vs. Containerization

Let me start by saying how pleased I am to have my first two speakers precede me because some of the things that they have said are things that I would like to have you think about. One is this whole notion of identity-preserved grains and GMOs and how we're going to deal with the aspect of small orders.

And the second talk which dealt with those issues of change and that question about the evolution of change and do you see evolutionary change or do you simply see quantum leaps, and I'm with the former speaker. I think you see quantum leaps. These are the factors that lead business to change and to adopt new structures. One of the ways that we speak of this is called reengineering a logistical system or a marketing system. And if you think about it, there are some things that have changed. You'll recognize them.

Think of the way that we used to build buildings where all the concrete was mixed on-site. Well, the Ready Mix trucks came in. I don't know when they came in, but you could never imagine going back to the way we used to do that activity. Or think of preformed rafters for building houses again in construction. Today who would build rafters on-site? It's just a rapid change that came in. In the agricultural field, one of those sorts of changes can come from an invention; in this case, the electric milking machine. The electric milking machine set off a whole series of changes from the electrification of farms and refrigeration of milk to bulk tanks to bigger dairies to better roads. It just never stopped. It's a continuing pool of change that was spawned by that one technical change, so I want you to think about that as we talk about what's going on in terms of the reengineering of grain transportation and logistics.