Idaho Wheat Shipping

You may recall that we did a story earlier this month stating that National Farmers Union President Roger Johnson warned the Surface Transportation Board that BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific's ability to deliver grain and ethanol at harvest are "substantially inadequate" and are resulting in farmers piling grain on the ground because of lack of transportation options.

 

Johnson was especially concerned regarding wheat, since harvest has already started and grain remains in the bin from last year's harvest.  "While BNSF claims that the total number of late shipments of wheat has declined nationwide, 95.42 percent of all past due cars are concentrated in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota. BNSF has promised to improve their performance, but we are still subject to delays and Average Train Speed at year-long lows," the letter notes. I called Executive Director of the Idaho Wheat Commission, Blaine Jacobson, about this issue. "More of the rail space is being devoted to moving oil and other products but it is mainly an issue on the Burlington Northern – Santa Fe which runs across the northern tier of the US. So it impacts the Dakotas and Montana particularly. Union Pacific is not being affected. Union Pacific is still shipping wheat and shipping agricultural products away they typically have shipped. For most of the growers in Idaho that depend on Union Pacific is not a big issue.