Part 3: AFBF Says UP-NS Merger Could Harm Rural Shippers

Today, we wrap up our three part series with American Farm Bureau Federation Economist Danny Munch on the proposed Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern merger. He explains how reducing redundancies in a rail system could increase national security risks and why, maintaining flexibility in a supply chain is crucial.

“If there is one company that controls a large percentage of the market, if they do get, you know, hacked, or their system is shut down for a certain amount of time, if you are an end to 10, end to end railroad that's in control of a huge portion of the market, that's a substantial amount of the supply chain that's that's now out of commission, and puts us much more susceptible to those delays. Also, if you have, you know, labor strikes, other sort of weather incidents, it's much more difficult for one railroad to be more nimble versus a railway with with multiple systems, or multiple railways under different companies. So those redundancies are very important in our system, especially in something like railway infrastructure that's so vital to moving our product.”

Munch says a majority of rail customers are strongly opposed to the proposed merger. A potential merger between union, Pacific and Norfolk, Southern would create the First Coast to Coast rail line spanning 50,000 route miles across 43 states with today's line on agriculture report. I'm Lorrie Boyer.