Flooding Disrupts Farm Shipments on the Mississippi River

Barges already loaded with soy beans, potash or scrap steel await movement on the Mississippi River in St. Paul, Minn., Jim Mone/AP

OMAHA, Neb.—Normally this time of year, huge barges can be seen chugging up the Mississippi River, carrying millions of tons of grain to market and bringing agriculture-related products to farmers in the Midwest for the new growing season. But there’s not much barge traffic this year.

That’s because historic spring flooding that swamped and tainted farmland, also left parts of the Mississippi closed for business.