The reality of the States’ sub-prime financial crisis means shippers are scouring nation’s docksides looking for deals on boxes in which to ship product off the continent – but they’re just not there in the numbers, or at the prices, which have become the norm in recent years.

The country’s financial difficulties have brought the problem about, with fewer goods imported from the Far East meaning fewer empty boxes available for the return trip. The return-trip deal container companies used to cut for grain shipments, which made containers a more attractive option than bulk carriers, simply aren’t to be found.

And that means container costs are up by a much as 20% and rising, according to one source at the US Grain Council (USGC). Jay O’Neil, senior agricultural economist at the Kansas State University, and a consultant to the USGC, said the cost of shipping a container from America to Asia was in the order of $1,700, 20% up on last year – against the background of a 12% decline in container traffic. “Everyone is hustling trying to find and compete for empty containers,” he says.

And well they might, with USGC officials predicting record American farm family incomes for the second successive year. Ken Hobbie, USGC president and chief executive, says there is a potential market for feed grain exports of 71m tons from America, up from 59m tons a year ago – and potentially worth $14.7bn.

That’s a great many hard-to-find boxes, or bulk carriers, come to that, and their availability could dent profitability by tipping the balance of demand in favour of the east, where Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is talking up his country’s potential future as an even bigger supplier than it already is.

He nailed his colours firmly to the mast at the recent G8 summit when his ambitions came through as part of his plan to facilitate a world grain summit in Moscow.

Laudable indeed is his desire to lead the fight to head off the rises in food prices that are hurting the world’s poorest nations, but behind that appears to be a grander plan to enhance the financial potential of Russian grain.

Certainly President Medvedev acted swiftly if the grain summit idea came to him during the G8 event; within a week Arkady Zlochevsky, President of Russia’s Grain Foundation, was busy announcing the date – early June next year – within days of the first event. And by then he was talking of up to 70 countries taking part, with up to 700 delegates attending, with a main meeting and a series of seminars and round table discussions about the state of the grain market.

He said it would be prudent to discuss agreeing and co-ordinating national agrarian programmes and re-forming humanitarian shipments so people could be helped without destroying the stimulus for self-help in those countries.

He added the Russia ought to host the summit because the country had become a noticeable player in world markets in recent years, with strong growth in both grain production and yield – 50 countries bought Russian wheat last year.

Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said the country had plenty of hectares it could turn over to grain production, increasing output by 50% in as little as five years – and the crop in the year beginning July this year is expected to be in the order of 85m tonnes, of which 15m will be exported.

Also planned is a consolidation of Russian government holdings in 28 grain processing companies in order to create the country’s largest grain trader, accounting for half of the country’s exports and even in operation within only months.

What that will mean for anyone involved in shipping grain from the country is, as yet, anyone’s guess.