Elevators Full

Too much of a good thing. National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson is predicting an almost catastrophic disaster for well-intentioned wheat and other grain farmers who are growing bountiful crops but may end up with no place to go. The rail system that is a primary conduit for grains to grain elevators is preoccupied with transporting oil and coal. "We've got reports of elevators being plumb full, having no storage space at all available just as the harvest is starting. Farmers have no alternatives, nor do the elevators so elevators are forced to significantly reduce the price that they are going to pay to the farmers because they are going to take enormous risk of piling this grain outside subject to weather, subject to spoilage, subject to shrinkage and not knowing when the railroads are ever going to be able to start hauling this stuff away and market it. It is a real logistical issue and the railroads have simply got to step up and do a much better job here and at this point it is not happening. What are they going to do? I mean at this point they have to move all the grain out from last year that's got these elevators plumb full. They've got to find room for this year's harvest and then were not that far away from corn harvest coming in. That's when you see enormous volumes because yields on an acre of corn are multiples larger than wheat so you need an awful lot of capacity. They just got to deal with it. They've got to step up.