Looking to diversify its export business, the Pacific Northwest port is helping send cattle to Vietnam as part of the country’s “glass of milk per child per day” program that aims to ease childhood malnutrition.
The Port of Olympia, which up until now has been best known for the export of logs, is trying to make its mark exporting a much different commodity—livestock. It’s a market in which few ports on the West Coast, or even throughout the United States, have more than a toehold.
In late June, the port facilitated the export of over 1,600 head of cattle to the southeast Asian country of Vietnam, a country of 93 million people that borders China. It was the second such shipment this year through Olympia and the third since 2015.
“This is just one way that we’re helping to diversify the cargo here at the Port of Olympia. Diversification of cargo is important to us, and obviously logs is our base here, but having other cargoes come in like the cattle, [gives us more] varied cargoes,” port spokeswoman Julie Foglia-Jones told American Shipper.
“The cattle are just one way
that we’re helping to diversify
the cargo here at the
Port of Olympia,
which is important to us.”
Julie Foglia-Jones,
spokesperson,
Port of Olympia
Diversification has become increasingly important at smaller ports, where revenues have fallen in recent years for multiple reasons. One reason for Olympia is that it finished 2016 with a financial deficit of about $2.6 million. In 2015, the port brought in $9.7 million in revenue, much lower than the projected $14.8 million, due in part to a drop in global oil prices.
This year, the port has said it expects to receive just under $12 million in operating income, with about $4.4 million of that coming from marine terminal operations.
Per Child Per Day. The cows helping to bring in a portion of that revenue are being exported to Asia from the U.S. as part of a Vietnamese effort to reduce malnutrition among children. The country’s government formed a partnership with Missouri-based livestock and agriculture supplier Clayton Agri-Marketing, and to date, three shipments have departed out of the Port of Olympia—in June and April of this year, as well as an initial shipment in late 2015.
“Vietnam has launched a program where they’re really increasing their dairy production quite significantly through their ‘glass of milk per child per day’ program,” Port of Olympia Marine Terminal Director Len Faucher explained in a recent interview with American Shipper. “So the customer came to a stevedore and ourselves and presented an opportunity to move 1,400 head of heifers, and that first shipment happened in November of 2015.”
The most recent shipment consisted of 1,650 cattle, according to Port of Olympia terminal services assistant Conley Booth, while the April and November 2015 shipments held about 2,160 and 1,440 head, respectively. The April shipment was the largest ever for cattle crossing the Pacific Ocean, according to the port, and exporting such a large number of live animals presents some unique challenges.
“The cows are the most important, and everybody’s attention is on that. However, I’d say from a logistics sense, it’s all the other materials that create the biggest headaches,” Faucher said.
Among those headaches are transporting food and bedding for the animals to the vessel.
“We’ve got feed companies that are providing feed products. Hay, the truckers that are transporting that over to that facility. Rail was involved in the April shipment. And USDA has been asked and tasked to do some different activities. There’s a lot of hours that are going to jobs here in the area,” he said.
According to port estimates, longshore workers put in about 272 manpower hours over the course of each loading.
The livestock have been brought in to Olympia from various states, including Washington, California and Idaho, Foglia-Jones said.
“Basically, this is usually a two-day load, where they have to load the feed, the bedding, all the necessities that are required on board for the cattle…on Day 1,” before the cattle are loaded the next day, Faucher said. “We’ve got our local ILWU, Local 47, fantastic labor force here, and they take care of all the manning for us on the ship and shore side.
“The customer is very active to make sure this is done right,” he added. “USDA will be present because they’ll have veterinarians on board to make sure everything is done properly. A lot of different people are significant players involved in this.”
The vessel used during the June 22-23 loading and subsequent sailing was the Angus Express, a 337-foot, Philippines-flagged livestock carrier. Like the two vessels used in the previous exports—the Singapore-flagged, 442-foot Ganado Express and 273-foot Falconia—the ship can make the trip from the Port of Olympia to Vietnam in about three weeks. Although the Falconia could only transport up to 1,500 head of livestock, the subsequent vessels had enough room for up to 4,000, according to the port.
USDA Oversight. Faucher said many steps are taken by the U.S. Department of Agriculture before the animals board the vessels to ensure that they’re as healthy as possible before making the trip.
“This is mandated, regulated and operated by the USDA throughout the entire process,” he explained. “For example, the USDA’s involved right at the get go. When the ship pulls in, there’s a full inspection—probably a two, three-hour inspection—where they check to make sure all the stalls are completely clean, they ensure that all the areas for the bulk feed and hay are all clean and ready to go.
“They check all the bins that are going to be associated with feeding the cows during the process to make sure those are all in good shape. They check ventilation systems, backup ventilation systems and all the different attributes to ensure that the cattle are going to be treated as humanely as possible during their voyage,” he said. “To go with that, USDA veterinarians are brought out to inspect that cattle in a holding area,” said Faucher. “So there is a process in which these cattle are organized together and they’re brought in for a quarantine period to ensure that they’re not with any other cows spreading any illness. Each of them are inspected at the farm and inspected again before they go on board the trucks to come over to the port. There’s quite a thorough process to make sure that each of these heifers are in really good, pristine condition, ready to go, and that the ship is going to give them the safest, cleanest and most humane voyage possible.”
The Port of Olympia is by no means the first or the only seaport to engage in the livestock export business. On the U.S. East Coast, the Port of Wilmington in Delaware is the primary gateway handling shipments headed eastbound across the Atlantic Ocean. And Faucher noted some ports in the U.S. Gulf Coast have also been involved in the trade. But Olympia is the one seaport east of the Mississippi that’s actively looking to make a mark in the trade by positioning itself as a West Coast livestock export specialist.
Not only is the port less than an hour away from a USDA-approved quarantine facility, it has a 76,000-square-foot covered dry-storage warehouse that can be used for storage of hay, bedding and feed, plus a designated mobile harbor crane available for moving breakbulk feed and bedding.
“At the end of the day, it looks like this is an increasing market that the port can be a part of,” Faucher said. “And we want to make sure we’re able to facilitate it and take care of those customer needs.”