Baton Rouge port project expected to have huge impact on La. agriculture

David Bollich says a $130 million Louis Dreyfus Commodities project under construction at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge in Port Allen will have a greater beneficial impact on agriculture in south and central Louisiana than anything that has happened since he was a farmer. Bollich used to be a farmer in St. Landry Parish. Rice, soybeans and crawfish, he says. “If you do rice, you gotta have a few crawfish ponds on the side,” he says. He works for Louis Dreyfus now, so he’s biased, but he’s not the only one who’s excited about changes at the port. The new-and-improved grain elevator, slated to open next year, will connect Louisiana farmers with foreign markets, which could be worth millions to growers—thereby boosting the regional economy—while luring more ships to the port. “If you ask any grain farmer in this area,” says Mike Danna with the Louisiana Farm Bureau, “I think they’re fired up.” Basically, all the technology at the elevator facility that moves grain—off barges and trucks, sorted into massive bins by quality, and conveyed onto ships—will be dramatically upgraded. “Everything will move faster,” Bollich says. Get all the details on the project in the full story, from the current issue of Business Report, here.