Regulators said Monday that the Canadian Pacific Railway, one of two key railroads that serve Minnesota farmers, isn’t making enough progress in shipping a huge backlog of grain.
Millions of bushels of corn and soybeans from 2013’s harvest are still in storage due to an overburdened rail system in the Upper Midwest. The big goal now is to ship last year’s crop before this year’s harvest — expected to be large — comes in.
In June, the U.S. Surface Transportation Board ordered Canadian Pacific (CP) and BNSF Railway Co., the two main roads serving the region, to provide regular reports of their efforts to transport last year’s crop. In a letter made public on Monday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said CP is still behind.
“Despite some progress ... USDA remains concerned about CP’s ability to resolve its backlog and the lack of transparency in CP’s reporting to the [Surface Transportation] Board,” USDA’s Edward Avalos, undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, wrote.
“Grain elevators in some locations, such as South Dakota and Minnesota, could run out of storage capacity during the upcoming harvest, requiring grain be stored on the ground and running the risk of spoiling,” the USDA letter said. “The projected size of the upcoming harvest creates a high potential for loss in the affected states.”
