SMART Union
FARGO, N.D. – The furious pace of energy exploration in North Dakota is creating a crisis for farmers whose grain shipments have been held up by a vast new movement of oil by rail, leading to millions of dollars in agricultural losses and slower production for breakfast cereal giants like General Mills.
The backlog is only going to get worse, farmers said, as they prepared this week for what is expected to be a record crop of wheat and soybeans.
Read the complete story at The New York Times.
U.S. railroad regulators have ordered BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway to hasten shipments of grain from a backlog that has frustrated farmers and people who run grain elevators.
The Surface Transportation Board, in a decision late Friday, required the two railroads to publicly disclose every week plans to address the delays, which have forced some in the upper Midwest to heap grain on the ground after running out of storage space because of autumn’s massive harvests. Others just can’t get grain moved out of elevators or are doing so at higher prices.
Read the complete story at the Journal Star.