Port of Victoria dedicates $4 million agricultural exports center

Port of Victoria dedicates $4 million agricultural exports center    The Port of Victoria in Texas has opened a new $4 million agricultural exports center, which allows area farmers to more efficiently store and distribute their products by truck, rail or marine transport.
   “This is the largest, most modern facility of its kind in the southern U.S., and will allow area farmers to ship their grain by rail directly to Mexico or by barge to New Orleans,” said Howard Hawthorne, executive director for the Port of Victoria, in a statement.
   “It offers a high degree of speed and efficiency, and will allow farmers to move their product to major market points at a lower cost,” he added.
   The facility offers storage for 400,000 bushels of rice, soybeans, corn, or milo, and can load and offload product at a rate of 50,000 bushels an hour, greatly reducing shipping delays, port officials said.
   The facility also features a Federal Grain Inspection Service station and an on-site laboratory. As a free trade zone and Texas enterprise zone, the Port of Victoria expects about 150,000 tons of agricultural products to move through the facility each year, with an estimated value of more than $10 million.
   Plans are already underway to quadruple the capacity of the new agricultural exports center in the future, port officials said.