No Credit Score? No Problem! Just Hand Over More Data.

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"In the USA for decades, the arbiters of creditworthiness have been two powerful groups: the Big Three credit bureaus, which keep files on roughly 200 million consumers, and score creators like FICO, which turn that raw data into a three-digit key to credit cards, car loans, mortgages and more.

 

But with tens of millions of consumers left out of traditional credit scoring and the pandemic exposing potential problems in the current system, established players and slick start-ups alike are collecting and crunching all manner of other data to determine who ought to get a loan and how much they should pay.

 

This so-called alternative credit scoring could have profound effects for consumers, many of them minorities or low-income individuals, who can be asked to hand over more intimate personal information — like their spending habits and details of their college degree — in hopes of getting a loan.

“The box for who gets a conventional credit score is pretty small, and that box hasn’t been updated in a while,” said Silvio Tavares, the chief executive officer of VantageScore, an established credit scorer that is owned by the big bureaus and is working on adding alternative data to its models. “Data is really a big equalizer.”

 

The efforts to better understand potential borrowers increasingly take two forms, which sometimes overlap. The first involves obtaining cash flow and transaction data from users’ bank accounts, a practice that lenders including Kabbage have used. The second involves applying artificial intelligence to broad swaths of information — which may include items already in your credit report, new details such as the mileage on the used car you’re buying or perhaps behavior gleaned from your debit accounts — to assess applicants’ ability to pay.

 

Regulators have recently begun discussing both issues, considering and collecting input from the financial industry and others. Officials at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have warned that artificial intelligence could amplify risks, including by perpetuating biases against certain borrowers, charging some of them too much or simply making inaccurate predictions. The bureau’s director, Rohit Chopra, recently said the new algorithms became “black boxes behind brick walls” when left unchecked.

 

A deeper understanding of potential borrowers’ finances is valuable intelligence for lenders. The roughly 45 million people who have a thin or nonexistent credit history — more than 15 percent of the country’s adult population — are a lucrative untapped market.

 

“FICO is more than 30 years old,” said Dave Girouard, chief executive of Upstart, which uses nonfinancial data including the type of job you hold and your level of education to help make credit decisions on personal and auto loans. “It leaves millions of people out in the cold and millions more who pay more for credit than they should.”

 

Upstart’s platform is growing rapidly. It has more than 30 lending partners, including Cross River Bank, which made more than 360,000 new loans totaling $3.13 billion in the third quarter, up 244 percent from a year earlier. At least four of those lenders dropped their minimum FICO score requirement altogether.

 

The company is also something of a regulatory guinea pig: Upstart was the first business to receive a no-action letter from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The letter essentially said the bureau had no plans to take any regulatory action against the company in return for detailed information about its loans and operations.

 

Though the bureau didn’t recreate Upstart’s results on its own, it said the company had approved 27 percent more applicants than the traditional model, while the average interest rates they paid were 16 percent lower. For example, “near prime” customers with FICO scores from 620 to 660 were approved about twice as frequently, according to company data. Younger and lower-income applicants also fared better.

 

Upstart, which also agreed to be monitored by two advocacy groups and an independent auditor, takes into account more than 1,000 data points inside and outside a consumer’s credit report. It has tweaked its modeling at times — it no longer uses the average incoming SAT and ACT scores of a borrower’s college — but includes the person’s college, area of study and employment history. (Nurses rank well, for example, because they’re rarely unemployed, Mr. Girouard said.) The amount that borrowers are asking for may also be a factor: If they are seeking more than Upstart’s algorithms believe is appropriate, that may work against them.

 

Other companies work in a similar way, although the methods and data they use vary.

 

TomoCredit, for example, will issue a Mastercard credit card to applicants — even those with no credit score — after receiving permission to peer at their financial accounts; it analyzes more than 50,000 data points, such as monthly income and spending patterns, savings accounts and stock portfolios. Within two minutes, consumers are approved for anywhere from $100 to $10,000 in credit, to be paid off weekly. On-time payments help build users’ traditional credit files and scores.

 

Zest AI, a Los Angeles company that already works with banks, auto lenders and credit unions, is also working with Freddie Mac, which recently began using the company’s tools to evaluate people who may not fit squarely inside traditional scoring models.

 

Jay Budzik, Zest AI’s chief technology officer, said the company went deep into applicants’ credit reports, and might incorporate information from a loan application, such as the mileage or potential resale value of a used car. It can also look at consumers’ checking accounts.

 

“How frequently are they getting close to zero?” Mr. Budzik said. “Those things are helpful in creating an additional data point on a consumer that is not in the credit report.”

 

The same methods can also be applied to those who already have a robust credit history, filling out their profiles in real time. Such information became more valuable during the pandemic because credit scores alone may not have picked up signs of stress when borrowers could pause payments on student loans and mortgages.

It can take months for some information to filter into credit scores, said Kelly Thompson Cochran, deputy director of FinRegLab, a nonprofit that tests new technologies in the financial industry. “This can make it particularly difficult for lenders to predict default risk accurately both for applicants who have recently experienced financial difficulties and for applicants who are rebounding from past income or expense shocks,” she said.

 

Established credit scoring and reporting companies are increasingly offering consumers ways to add additional information. The credit bureau Experian’s Boost feature allows consumers to pipe in payments on bills from a services like Netflix, Disney+ and their mobile phone provider. The average customer’s FICO 8 score — the formula currently used by most lenders — rises 13 points, executives said.

 

And FICO is piloting a new score, UltraFICO, which augments its traditional model by taking into account — with users’ permission — their cash on hand, history of positive balances, and recentness and frequency of banking transactions. FICO estimated the new score can reach 15 million more people.

 

More information, such as income data or whether you have a 401(k) plan, could be included in future iterations, said FICO’s chief executive, Will Lansing. “I think the future of the industry is the consumer taking more control of their data,” he said, “and deciding when it will be used and what it will be used for and for what purpose.”

 

Consumer advocates say that’s a crucial issue.

While the growing use of transaction data could be a boon to many borrowers, checking and debit accounts contain all sorts of revelatory information, and access to it must remain voluntary, advocates said. Lenders may be looking largely at the broad strokes of your cash flow now, but will they eventually glimpse at where you shop and what types of doctors you visit?

“Credit invisibility is a problem, but some of the solutions or cures can be worse than the disease,” said Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center. “It’s a high-wire act to make sure this helps more than it hurts.”"

As the Chinese authorities have already figured out in working with such a very successful firm, Ant, allowing these firms to work with lending partners, i.e. to use lending partners' money to give loans poses a risk to the country’s entire financial system, since the desire to make quick money without any material liability is disastrous, as the recent financial crisis over the distribution of mortgages without material responsibility for repaying those loans has shown. If these firms work with their own money, then there is no such problem. 

Krizė uostuose gali reikšti krizę Amerikos ūkininkams

"Vos 60 mylių yra nuo El Dorado pieninės Ontarijuje, Kalifornijoje, iki didžiausio šalies konteinerių uosto Los Andžele. Tačiau ūkiui nelabai sekasi patekti į laivą, plaukiantį į užsienio rinkas, kurios yra labai svarbios jo verslui.

 

    Ūkis priklauso vienam didžiausių šalies kooperatyvų Kalifornijos Dairies Inc., kuris gamina pieno miltelius Pietryčių Azijos ir Meksikos gamykloms, kurios naudoja juos saldainiams, kūdikių mišiniams ir kitiems maisto produktams gaminti. Paprastai bendrovė kiekvieną mėnesį iš uostų išsiunčia 50 milijonų svarų pieno miltelių ir sviesto. Tačiau pastaraisiais mėnesiais maždaug 60 procentų bendrovės užsakymų išvykstantiems laivams buvo atšaukti arba atidėti, todėl per mėnesį gaunama apie 45 mln. dolerių pajamų.

 

    „Tai ne tik problema, tai ne tik nepatogumas, bet ir katastrofiška“, – sakė „California Dairies“ generalinis direktorius Bradas Andersonas.

 

    Importo tiekimo grandinės krizė iššaukė nacionalines antraštes ir patraukė Bideno administracijos dėmesį, nes pirkėjai nerimauja dėl to, kad per šventes laiku pasirūpintų dovanomis, o dėl didelės vartotojų paklausos sofų, elektronikos, žaislų ir drabužių infliacija pakilo iki aukščiausio lygio per tris dešimtmečius.

 

    Dar viena krizė išryškėja ir Amerikos ūkių eksportui.

 

    Dėl tos pačios spūsties JAV uostuose ir sunkvežimių vairuotojų stygiaus, sustabdžiusio kai kurių prekių srautą, ūkininkams taip pat sunku išgabenti krovinius į užsienį ir įvykdyti sutartis, nes sustojo maisto tiekimas. Dabar laivus iškrauti uostuose užtrunka savaites, o ne dienas, o atsarginiai siuntėjai taip labai trokšta grįžti į Aziją pasiimti daugiau prekių, kad dažnai iš JAV iškeliauja su tuščiais konteineriais, o ne laukia, kol amerikiečių ūkininkai juos pripildys.

 

    Nacionalinė pieno gamintojų federacija skaičiuoja, kad gabenimo sutrikimai JAV pieno pramonei pirmąjį metų pusmetį kainavo beveik 1 milijardą dolerių dėl didesnių siuntimo ir atsargų išlaidų, prarastų eksporto apimčių ir kainų pablogėjimo.

 

    „Eksportas šiuo metu yra didžiulė JAV problema“, – sakė Jasonas Parkeris, logistikos bendrovės „Flexport“ pasaulinio krovinių vežimo ir intermodalinio transporto vadovas. „Išvežti eksportą iš šalies iš tikrųjų yra sunkiau, nei importuoti į šalį“.

 

    Žemės ūkis sudaro maždaug dešimtadalį Amerikos prekių eksporto, o maždaug 20 procentų JAV ūkininkų ir sodininkų produkcijos siunčiama į užsienį. Pramonė priklauso nuo sudėtingos sunkvežimių-refrižeratorių, vagonų, krovininių laivų ir sandėlių choreografijos, kurios dažnai sklandžiai ir nepastebimai gabena šviežius produktus visame pasaulyje.

 

    JAV ūkių eksportas šiais metais smarkiai išaugo, nes pramonė atsigauna nuo pandemijos ir gauna naudos iš prekybos susitarimo su Kinija, pagal kurį reikėjo įsigyti amerikietiškų žemės ūkio produktų. Didelė pasaulinė maisto paklausa ir sparčiai augančios žaliavų kainos, palyginti su praėjusiais metais, padidino JAV žemės ūkio produktų eksporto vertę daugiau nei 20 procentų.

 

    Vis dėlto eksportuotojai teigia, kad dėl tiekimo grandinės problemų ant stalo palieka nemenkas pinigų sumas. Ir daugelis ūkininkų dabar stengiasi neatsilikti nuo didėjančių medžiagų, tokių, kaip trąšos, oro filtrai, padėklai ir pakuotės, sąnaudų, taip pat rasti ūkiams juodadarbių ir vairuotojų, kurie galėtų perkelti jų prekes.

 

    Eksportuotojams atstovaujančios Žemės ūkio transporto koalicijos atlikta apklausa parodė, kad dėl transportavimo iššūkių buvo prarasta vidutiniškai 22 procentai užsienio žemės ūkio pardavimų.

 

    Dėl vėlavimų uostuose ypač nukentėjo produktai, gabenami gofruotoje metalinėje taroje, pavyzdžiui, sūris, sviestas, mėsa, graikiniai riešutai ir medvilnė.

 

    Vienos bendrovės „Talmera USA Inc.“, eksportuojančios pieno miltelius, sūrį ir pieno produktus, pvz., laktozę, siunta atidėdavo tiek daug kartų, kad jos krovinys galiausiai atsidūrė pirminiame laive, kuriam ji buvo paskirta po to, kai laivas išplaukė iš Sietlo uosto. , apiplaukė Aziją ir grįžo po kelių savaičių.

 

    A. Andersonas teigė, kad jo įmonės klientai pirkdami pradėjo ieškoti tiekėjų Europoje, Naujojoje Zelandijoje ir kitose šalyse, nors JAV pieno pramonė garsėja aukštos kokybės reputacija. „Atvirai kalbant, tai nėra svarbu klientui, jei negali klientas gauti tų prekių“, – sakė jis.

 

    Dalis problemos yra ta, kad laivybos kompanijos gali imti kur kas didesnę kainą už krovinių perkėlimą iš Azijos į JAV, nei atvirkščiai, todėl nenori gaišti laiko, laukdamos mažiau pelningo krovinio, išplaukiančio iš JAV Vakarų pakrantės.

 

    Remiantis internetinės krovinių gabenimo rinkos „Freightos“ duomenimis, 40 pėdų konteinerio pristatymo iš Azijos į JAV vakarinę pakrantę kaina lapkritį išaugo iki 18 730 dolerių – daugiau nei 17 kartų daugiau, nei kainuoja kelionė atvirkštine kryptimi.

 

    Dėl to daugiau nei 80 procentų 434 000 20 pėdų konteinerių, 2021 metų rugsėjį eksportuotų iš Los Andželo uosto, buvo tušti, palyginti su maždaug dviem trečdaliais 2020 m. ir 2019 m. rugsėjo mėn.

 

    Mario Corde Ro, Long Byčo uosto vykdomasis direktorius, sakė, kad kainų skirtumas paskatino laivybos bendroves grąžinti savo konteinerius „grįžti į Aziją kaip galima anksčiau, kad galėtumėte į jį įkelti importuojamų prekių.

 

    „Ir, deja, šis požiūris paveikė Amerikos eksportuotoją“, – sakė jis.

 

    Tiekimo trūkumas krovinių gabenime sausumoje taip pat turi įtakos ūkininkams, nes sunkvežimių vairuotojai randa geresnį atlyginimą ir daugiau valandų pristato šventines dovanas, nei veždami sojas ir kiaules.

 

    Tony Clayton, Clayton Agri-Marketing Inc. prezidentas Jefferson City, Mo, eksportuoja gyvus gyvūnus veisimui visame pasaulyje. Jis sakė, kad bendrovė konkuruoja tiek uostuose, tiek oro uostuose dėl vietos pieninėms telyčioms, kiaulėms ir ožkoms. Ir daugelis gyvulių sunkvežimių vairuotojų pastebėjo, kad gali uždirbti daugiau, veždami sausus krovinius.

 

    „Tai iššūkis“, – sakė ponas Claytonas. „Mes visi kovojame ir konkuruojame dėl tų žmonių, kurie sės už vairo.

 

    Infrastruktūros įstatymo projektu, kurį Kongresas priėmė lapkričio 5 d., siekiama ištaisyti tiekimo grandinės atsilikimus, investuojant 17 mlrd. dolerių.

 

    Į įstatymo projektą taip pat įtrauktas finansavimas geležinkelių, kelių ir vandens kelių gerinimui, taip pat nuostata finansuoti iškylančias konteinerių aikšteles už Savanos uosto Džordžijos valstijoje, siekiant sumažinti spūstis. Taip pat iki 18 metų bus sumažintas minimalus sunkvežimių vairuotojų, galinčių kirsti valstijos ribas, amžius, siekiant pritraukti daugiau darbuotojų į profesiją, kuri tapo pagrindine tiekimo grandinių kliūtimi.

 

    Rugsėjo mėn. JAV žemės ūkio departamentas taip pat paskelbė, kad skirs 500 mln. dolerių, kad padėtų ūkininkams susidoroti su transportavimo iššūkiais ir didėjančiomis medžiagų sąnaudomis.

 

    Johnas D. Porcari, Bideno administracijos uosto pasiuntinys, sakė, kad ūkių eksportas yra „pagrindinis administracijos dėmesys“, o Baltieji rūmai bandė paskatinti privataus sektoriaus įmones, įskaitant vandenynų vežėjus, išjudinti tiekimo grandinę.

 

    Baltieji rūmai penktadienį surengė apskritojo stalo posėdį su žemės ūkio produktų eksportuotojais, o J. Porcari planuoja šią savaitę apsilankyti Kalifornijos Ouklando uoste, kuris yra vienas didžiausių žemės ūkio eksporto punktų.

 

    „Žinome, kad kai kurie sektoriai turėjo daugiau problemų, nei kiti, ir stengiamės pašalinti šias kliūtis“, – interviu sakė P. Porcari.

 

    Nors žemės ūkio eksportuotojai palankiai vertina ilgalaikes investicijas į infrastruktūrą, jie ir toliau susirūpinę dėl didesnių tiesioginių nuostolių.

 

    P. Andersonas, kurio įmonė yra atsakinga už beveik 10 procentų Amerikos pieno tiekimo ir penktadalį Amerikos sviesto gamybos, sakė esąs nusivylęs, kad didžiojoje dalyje viešo dialogo iš vyriausybės ir žiniasklaidos buvo daugiau dėmesio skirta vartotojų prekių importui.

 

    „Ar per Kalėdas gausime žaislų? Ar gausime lustų automobiliams? Manome, kad tai yra tikri rūpesčiai ir apie juos reikia kalbėti“, – sakė jis. „Apie tai, apie ką nekalbama, yra ilgalaikė žala, daroma eksportuotojams pasaulinėje rinkoje, ir kaip tai bus pražūtinga mūsų šeimų ūkiams.

 

    Žemės ūkio eksportuotojams teko kūrybiškai apeiti perpildytus uostus ir sandėlius. A. Andersonas sakė, kad jo įmonė svarsto galimybę nukreipti kai kurias siuntas daugiau, nei tūkstantį mylių, iki Vankuverio uosto.

 

    Mike'as Durkinas, didžiausios pasaulyje mocarelos sūrio gamintojos „Leprino Foods Company“ generalinis direktorius, šį mėnesį Atstovų rūmų atstovams sakė, kad beveik visi 2021 m. bendrovės gabenimai vandenynu buvo atšaukti ir rezervuoti vėlesniam laikui. Daugiau, nei 100 bendrovės užsakymų šiais metais buvo atšaukti ir perregistruoti 17 kartų, sakė J. Durkinas, o tai prilygsta penkių mėnesių vėlavimui pristatyti sūrį.

 

    Tuo tarpu „Leprino Foods“ turėjo mokėti už sūrio laikymą šaldomuose konteineriuose gabenimo aikštelėse, o tai šiemet papildomai surinko 25 mln. dolerių nuostolio."

Lietuvos ūkininkai galėtų pasinaudoti Amerikos ūkininkų bėdomis ir užimti amerikiečių dalį rinkoje. Deja, pieno ūkiai Lietuvoje jau yra sunaikinti sankcijomis Rusijai ir Rusijos kontrasankcijomis, Lietuvos valdžios pastangomis užkrautomis ant lietuvių galvų. Sankcijos laukto efekto nedavė, tik rusai išmoko gaminti daugiau ir geresnių pieno produktų, o mes perėjome prie primityvaus ir alinančio Lietuvos laukus bei naikinančio Lietuvos kaimą grūdų eksporto. Lietuvos užsienio politika yra katastrofa Lietuvai.

 

Crunch at Ports May Mean Crisis for American Farms

"It’s just 60 miles from El Dorado Dairy in Ontario, Calif., to the nation’s largest container port in Los Angeles. But the farm is having little luck getting its products onto a ship headed for the foreign markets that are crucial to its business.

The farm is part of one of the nation’s largest cooperatives, California Dairies Inc., which manufactures milk powder for factories in Southeast Asia and Mexico that use it to make candy, baby formula and other foods. The company typically ships 50 million pounds of its milk powder and butter out of ports each month. But roughly 60 percent of the company’s bookings on outbound vessels have been canceled or deferred in recent months, resulting in about $45 million in missed revenue per month.

“This is not just a problem, it’s not just an inconvenience, it’s catastrophic,” said Brad Anderson, the chief executive of California Dairies.

A supply chain crisis for imports has grabbed national headlines and attracted the attention of the Biden administration, as shoppers fret about securing gifts in time for the holidays and as strong consumer demand for couches, electronics, toys and clothing pushes inflation to its highest level in three decades.

Yet another crisis is also unfolding for American farm exports.

The same congestion at U.S. ports and shortage of truck drivers that have brought the flow of some goods to a halt have also left farmers struggling to get their cargo abroad and fulfill contracts before food supplies go bad. Ships now take weeks, rather than days, to unload at the ports, and backed-up shippers are so desperate to return to Asia to pick up more goods that they often leave the United States with empty containers rather than wait for American farmers to fill them up.

The National Milk Producers Federation estimates that shipping disruptions have cost the U.S. dairy industry nearly $1 billion in the first half of the year in terms of higher shipping and inventory costs, lost export volume and price deterioration.

“Exports are a huge issue for the U.S. right now,” said Jason Parker, the head of global trucking and intermodal at Flexport, a logistics company. “Getting exports out of the country is actually harder than getting imports into the country.”

Agriculture accounts for about one-tenth of America’s goods exports, and roughly 20 percent of what U.S. farmers and ranchers produce is sent abroad. The industry depends on an intricate choreography of refrigerated trucks, railcars, cargo ships and warehouses that move fresh products around the globe, often seamlessly and unnoticed.

U.S. farm exports have risen strongly this year, as the industry bounces back from the pandemic and benefits from a trade deal with China that required purchases of American agricultural products. Strong global demand for food and soaring commodities prices have lifted the value of U.S. agricultural exports more than 20 percent over last year.

Still, exporters say they are leaving significant amounts of money on the table as a result of supply chain problems. And many farmers are now struggling to keep up with soaring costs for materials like fertilizer, air filters, pallets and packaging, as well as find farmhands and drivers to move their goods.

A survey by the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, which represents exporters, found that 22 percent of foreign agriculture sales on average were being lost as a result of transportation challenges.

Delays at ports have particularly hurt products that move in corrugated metal containers, like cheese, butter, meat, walnuts and cotton.

One company, Talmera USA Inc., which exports milk powder, cheese and dairy ingredients like lactose, had a shipment delayed so many times that its load finally wound up on the original vessel it was assigned to after the ship had left the port in Seattle, circumnavigated Asia and returned weeks later.

Mr. Anderson said that his company’s customers were beginning to look to suppliers in Europe, New Zealand and other countries for their purchases, even though the U.S. dairy industry has a reputation for high quality. “Frankly none of that matters to the customer if we can’t get it there,” he said.

 

Part of the problem is that shipping companies are able to charge far more to ferry goods from Asia to the United States than vice versa, so they don’t want to waste time waiting for a less lucrative load departing from the West Coast.

 

According to data from Freightos, an online freight marketplace, the cost to ship a 40-foot container from Asia to the U.S. West Coast soared to $18,730 in November — more than 17 times what it cost to make the reverse trip.

 

As a result, more than 80 percent of the 434,000 20-foot containers exported out of the Port of Los Angeles in September were empty — up from about two-thirds in September 2020 and September 2019.

 

Mario Cordero, the executive director of the Port of Long Beach, said that the price differential encouraged shipping companies to get their containers “back to Asia A.S.A.P. so you can load it with import items.”

“And unfortunately the American exporter is impacted by this approach,” he said.

A supply crunch in the trucking industry is also affecting farmers, as truckers find better pay and hours delivering holiday gifts than hauling soybeans and swine.

Tony Clayton, the president of Clayton Agri-Marketing Inc., in Jefferson City, Mo, exports live animals around the world for breeding. He said the company is competing at both ports and airports for space for dairy heifers, swine and goats. And many livestock truckers have found that they can earn more hauling dry freight.

“It is a challenge,” Mr. Clayton said. “We’re all fighting and competing for those people who will sit behind the steering wheel.”

The infrastructure bill that Congress passed on Nov. 5 aims to remedy supply chain backlogs by investing $17 billion in American ports, many of which rank among the least efficient in the world.

 

The bill also includes funding to improve railways, roads and waterways, as well as a provision to fund pop-up container yards outside the Port of Savannah, in Georgia, to ease congestion. It will also lower the minimum age of truckers who can cross state lines to 18, in a bid to attract more workers to a profession that has become a key bottleneck in supply chains.

 

In September, the U.S. Department of Agriculture also announced it would dispense $500 million to help farmers deal with transportation challenges and rising materials costs.

 

John D. Porcari, the Biden administration’s port envoy, said farm exports are a “primary focus” for the administration, and that the White House was trying to encourage private sector companies, including ocean carriers, to get the supply chain moving.

The White House held a round table with agricultural exporters on Friday, and Mr. Porcari plans to visit the Port of Oakland, in California, one of the biggest export points for agriculture, this week.

“We know that some sectors have had more trouble than others, and we’re working to eliminate those bottlenecks,” Mr. Porcari said in an interview.

While agricultural exporters have welcomed long-term infrastructure investments, they remain concerned about more immediate losses.

Mr. Anderson — whose company is responsible for nearly 10 percent of America’s milk supply and a fifth of American butter production — said he had been frustrated that much of the public dialogue from the government and in the media had focused more on consumer imports.

“Are we going to get toys for Christmas? Are we going to get chips for automobiles? We think those are real concerns and they need to be talked about,” he said. “What’s not being talked about is the long-term damage being done to exporters in the world market and how that’s going to be devastating to our family farms.”

Agricultural exporters have had to get creative to bypass congested ports and warehouses. Mr. Anderson said his company was considering rerouting some shipments more than a thousand miles to the port in Vancouver.

Mike Durkin, the chief executive of Leprino Foods Company, the world’s largest maker of mozzarella cheese, told House lawmakers this month that nearly all of the company’s 2021 ocean shipments had been canceled and rebooked for a later date. More than 100 of the company’s bookings this year had been canceled and rebooked 17 times, Mr. Durkin said, equating to a five-month delay in delivering their cheese.

In the interim, Leprino Foods has had to pay to hold its cheese in refrigerated containers in carrier yards, racking up an additional $25 million in fees this year."

Lithuanian farmers could take advantage of the plight of American farmers and capture American market share. Unfortunately, dairy farms in Lithuania have already been destroyed by sanctions against Russia and counter-sanctions imposed on Lithuanians by the politics of Lithuanian authorities. The sanctions did not have the expected effect, only the Russians learned to produce more and better dairy products, and we switched to the primitive, destructing the Lithuanian countryside work force and soil exhausting, export of grain. Lithuania's foreign policy is a disaster for Lithuania.