Forced some grain elevators in recent weeks
A new mountain range is growing across the U.S. Farm Belt as grain companies store excess crops in massive piles on the ground.
While the worst rail delays in more than a decade have forced some grain elevators in recent weeks to temporarily stop taking in crops once their bins fill up, others are pouring corn and soybeans onto the ground in cone-shaped mounds that can rise several stories tall.
Projected record harvests and congested railroad systems in the upper Midwest mean that this year’s piles in places like South Dakota likely will be among the biggest ever for grain elevators—the middlemen which gather crops from farmers for transport to processing plants and shipping ports—according to grain-industry officials.
Last summer, “grain elevators didn’t empty out like they normally would,” said Bob Metz, who farms corn and soybeans near Peever, S.D. “If they’re not getting timely [railroad service], they’re going to have to pile it on the ground.”
Midwestern grain elevators are run by tiny companies such as North Dakota’s Bowman Grain Inc. and multinational agricultural companies like Cargill Inc. and Archer Daniels Midland Co.
Railroad operators are working to resolve congestion that spiked last winter as increased shipments of goods ranging from microwave ovens to crude oil collided with the worst winter in years, forcing rail companies to run shorter and slower trains. In the Midwest, railroad networks also faced the challenge of moving the biggest corn crop on record, and this autumn they get to try it again.