Commodity News Service – The largest employer in Churchill, Manitoba will shut its doors, leaving employees and loaded cars alike stranded on the tracks. Workers at the Port of Churchill were told Monday, July 25, there would be no grain shipments going through the port this season, leaving approximately 10 per cent of Churchill residents out of […] Read more
Port of Churchill closing, blindsiding workers, industry alike
Grain transport problems solved? Not quite
Mandated minimums for grain movement are set to expire this summer — but Alberta crop industry leaders say they’re still needed
Reading Time: 5 minutes Canada’s railways moved a record amount of grain for the 2014-15 crop year — but any improvements were mostly thanks to luck, not fixes to the system, say users. “A lot of the same issues that were evident in 2013 and 2014 are still there, but we’ve had a good run based on excellent weather, […] Read more
Alberta Wheat chair says rail review misses the mark
Kevin Auch says lifting the revenue cap would be a mistake and reciprocal penalties are needed
Reading Time: 3 minutes A panel that spent a year and a half reviewing the Canadian Transportation Act got its key recommendations wrong. That’s the reaction from farmers, including Alberta Wheat Commission chair Kevin Auch. “We need to have some measure of a level playing field in the whole rail transportation thing,” said Auch, who farms near Carmangay. “We’re […] Read more
Group calls for sweeping changes to curb railways’ ‘monopolistic behaviour’
Crops Logistics Working Group wants penalties for not delivering rail cars and meaningful sharing of data
Reading Time: 2 minutes Ongoing assessment and better protection for small shippers are two ways to fix the grain transportation system. Those are two of eight recommendations made by the Crop Logistics Working Group as part of a review of the Canada Transportation Act. More on the Alberta Farmer: Eight fixes for an ailing grain shipping system The working group […] Read more
Eight fixes for an ailing grain shipping system
Reading Time: 3 minutes Here are excerpts from the Crop Logistics Working Group (CLWG) on its eight recommendations to improve the grain-handling and transportation system. The full report can be found here. Recommendation 1: Enhance Transparency in the Rail Market CLWG members request that the government encourage CN and CP to accurately report car order fulfilment data in a […] Read more
CLWG Submission to the CTA
Reading Time: < 1 minute On February 19, 2015, the Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, announced a renewed mandate for the Crop Logistics Working Group (CLWG). The CLWG brings together agriculture sector experts to provide advice on how to improve the grain handling and transportation system. The CLWG is chaired by Mr. Murdoch MacKay, and includes representation […] Read more
Think a big new West Coast terminal is good news? Think again
Expanding storage capacity just helps the big grain companies depress the price paid to farmers
Reading Time: 2 minutes G3 has announced it may build a new grain terminal at the West Lynn terminal on the North Shore of Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet. G3 is the joint venture of U.S.-based multinational grain company, Bunge Ltd., and the Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Co., owned by the Saudi government. It was given the assets of the […] Read more
The little railway that could
The railway moved 2,100 rail cars last year but getting them is an ongoing challenge
Reading Time: 3 minutes The Battle River Railway is a little engine that could — and it just keeps chugging along despite challenges thrown its way. “The grain business looks good. We moved 2,100 cars last year and we have every expectation of moving that much or more this year,” said Ken Eshpeter, the railway’s chairman and CEO and […] Read more
Big crops causing big headaches
Reading Time: < 1 minute Bruce McFadden has seen the future — and it looks congested. While Ottawa’s grain-movement edicts have captured headlines, the director of research for Quorum Corp., the federal grain monitor, has been looking at numbers. Big ones. Stats Canada initially estimated Western Canada’s 2014 harvest at 57 million tonnes, which when combined with carry-over, meant a […] Read more
PR fumbles and effective lobbying = grain-movement order
Five to Remember: While the railways were defending their performance, farmers were successfully urging Ottawa to crack the whip
Reading Time: 3 minutes The year dawned with CN and CP Rail insisting they were doing an excellent job moving grain, and weren’t to blame for plugged elevators and empty freighters anchored on the West Coast. It proved to be a spectacularly ineffective bit of PR. Everyone knew moving the all-time-record harvest of 2013 would be a challenge, and […] Read more
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