The Panama Canal expansion, which has been touted for what it will do for global trade, opened officially June 26 when a Chinese megaship successfully eased through the manmade canal.

Here are 4 things to keep in mind about this new passage for global agricultural trade:

1. The first vessel through was Chinese-owned. The ship, Cosco Shipping Panama, carried 9,000 containers. At 158 feet wide and 984 feet long, it is one of the more-modern, mega-vessels for which the expansion was engineered to handle, according to NBC News story “First Vessel Passes Through Newly Expanded Panama Canal”.

2. New lane of traffic doesn’t replace the old. The project creates a new lane of traffic along the canal through the construction of a new set of locks. The older canal-and-lock system accommodates ships with a max size of 5,000 TEUs. (TEU stands for twenty-foot equivalent unit, which describes the capacity of a container ship or terminal.) The expansion can accommodate what are called ‘post-Panamax’ vessels, or megaships up to 14,000 TEUs. The expansion doubles the canal’s capacity, according to the official website of the expansion project.

3. The expansion can be good for U.S. soybeans. Approximately 600 million bushels of U.S. soybeans, which is 44 percent of total U.S. soy exports, move annually through the Panama Canal, making soy the No. 1 U.S. agricultural commodity using the canal, says Mark Seib, a farmer-leader on both the United Soybean Board and Soy Transportation Coalition from Poseyville, Indiana, in a written statement.

“The transportation of soy beyond the elevator is not something we soybean farmers usually see, but it is the backbone of our industry,” says Seib. “Without a reliable transportation connection between supply and demand, soybean farmers would not be able to deliver their crop to end users at home and abroad.”

4. U.S. needs to improve to take advantage of canal’s expansion. The expansion also gives added advantage to other countries, including U.S. soy’s biggest competitors Brazil and Argentina, Seib says. Domestic transportation infrastructure needs maintenance and repair to allow U.S. soy to be moved into export position. Improvements are needed to accommodate larger ships and the increased volume of commodities moving via U.S. inland waterways.

“We need to focus on improving our infrastructure, especially the locks and dams on our inland waterways,” says Seib.  “Panama has done an excellent job of maintaining and improving its infrastructure for over 100 years, and it’s time to step up the work on ours.”