Jacklin Seed Shipment Stranded By Japanese Temblor

Earthquake-caused destruction at the port of Kobe has jarred shipment of Jacklin Seed Co. containers to Japan.

Vice President Hiromi Yanagisawa said the Post Falls company was notified Thursday the port will be closed for six months.

The port in nearby Osaka, to which many ships have been redirected, will close for a week while officials decide how to handle the backlog, he said.

Meanwhile, Jacklin has eight containers of seed sitting on a Seattle dock. Those must be loaded by 5 p.m. today in order to be accepted at Osaka, Yanagisawa said.

That should not be a problem, he said, but getting the cargo to Japan is only half the battle.

Although the bulk of that shipment was to be delivered in the Kobe-Osaka area, some was headed for the southern island of Kyushu.

Yanagisawa said Tuesday’s quake snapped land links to Kyushu through Kobe, vastly complicating the task of getting the seed moved south.

He said he has been told it will take six months to repair the rail and highway connections.

Also, Jacklin was preparing another five-container shipment that was to land at Kobe, he said. That will probably have to be shipped to Tokyo or some other port, then transferred to a smaller vessel to reach Kyushu.

Howard Granger, the Port of Seattle’s representative in Spokane, said Jacklin’s predicament is faced by many other agricultural shippers in Eastern Washington.

And as perplexing as the situation is for companies with goods to ship, it’s probably worse for those with cargo en route, he said.

“Lord knows if the company he shipped it to is still in business,” Granger said.