SASKATOON – Fewer farmers are loading their own rail cars.
Grain shipments of all descriptions are down this year, but the decline in producer cars stands out in statistics published by the Canadian Grain Commission.
Halfway through the current crop year, 2,038 producer cars have been shipped to port, a drop of 42 percent from the previous year. By comparison, total rail shipments from primary elevators are down 29 percent.
If the current pace continues, the number of producer cars will total around 4,100 by the end of the year, the lowest since 1984-85 and only one-third the number shipped just three years ago.
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Barry Dakiw, producer car administrator for the grain commission, said shipments of Canadian Wheat Board grains could pick up in the spring, depending on the crop and price outlook.
“We could see shipments get up to 5,000 or 6,000,” he said.
Producer car numbers increased steadily through the late 1980s and early 1990s, peaking at 13,886 in 1991-92.
Paul Orsak, chair of the Western Producer Car Group, an organization representing farmers who want to protect the right to ship producer cars, cited a number of reasons for the decline in shipments this year.
These include the overall drop in grain movement, some changes in the cash call market, farmers holding on to stocks, increased sales to local processors, improvements in the grain handling and transportation system and higher grain prices, particularly for board grains.
While farmers can still save $7 or $8 a tonne shipping their own car, that doesn’t seem as significant in today’s price environment.
Orsak said the number of cars isn’t all that important, adding his group sees them as a way to force efficiencies on the grain handling and transportation system, not as an end in themselves: “If I couldn’t afford to ship producer cars, I wouldn’t.”
The top commodity shipped in producer cars so far this year is CWB wheat with 1,208 cars, followed by flaxseed (366), canola (210), CWB barley (133), non-board feed grains (75) and CWB durum (46).
