Despite being landlocked in the heart of the Midwest, Illinois is the third largest exporting state across the United States. In 2023, the Illinois Farm Bureau reported that just under 17 percent of the exports from Illinois were related to agriculture, states Warren-Henderson Farm Bureau President Jake Armstrong.
“Total exports out of Illinois in 2023, in all industries, $81 billion. Of that, $13.7 billion, or just under 17 percent, was agricultural exports. We are the third largest exporting state in the nation and there are a lot of states that have a lot of oceanfront and ports that we don’t, but because of that Mississippi and how long our border is on that and how cheap it is to move product, plus the Illinois feeding into it, we can move a lot of product out of this state when we want to, plus the Great Lakes heading out to the northeast. We are a powerhouse in trade as a state.”
Building on the already well-established export market in Illinois, locally, the City of Galesburg has received a $25 million grant from the United States Department of Transportation through the “Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity” Program to install rail track and switching, creating a whole new avenue to transport goods.
