How have they affected, uh, agriculture?

Well, right now, in many of the agreements, we are lowering or eliminating tariffs.

If you look at, uh, the agreements, uh, just in the last two weeks, in the Dominican Republic, they are going to eliminate the tariffs on rice, and they're one of our biggest receivers of Louisiana rice.

As we continue to negotiate, if we find a tariff that's an issue, and then we bring that to the attention, I work with Secretary Rollins and, you know, the, the, the, the foreign ag service, that we can reduce, eliminate, or trade those off.

So our position is getting better in relation to, uh, to the elimination of tariffs.

Markets are opening up.

We're seeing increased exports of our major commodities, uh, including rice, corn, soybeans, and others as we level out these playing fields.

But-

How important is the inland waterway system to agriculture?

More than 33 states and a number of Canadian provinces ship their grain through the inland waterway systems.

More than 12 to 14,000 miles of interconnected waterways held up with, with locks and dams and bridges.

And so the wealth of America, if you see, we're at the bottom end of America's superhighway.

62 to 65% of all grain exported from the United States will come right past this point, and it begins in the inland waterways.

And we ship by water.

Shipping by water puts an additional 15 to 25 cents per bushel in every farmer's pocket that's able to ship that way.

Yeah.

Wow

... totally helping us.

We had National Guard.

We had all the different strike teams from across the United States, local volunteer fire departments from across Louisiana, as well as additional help from every agency in the Department of Ag.

And so it shows you what can happen when the weather conditions are right in, you know, the Orleans area.

You know, you had the fires in the marsh or what was marsh that was then drained for economic development.

And without the water on top, y- then you had that peat layer that dried out.

Mm-hmm