From the Western Producer
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Railroads should be forced to feel the financial pain, just like farmers and grain companies, when they don’t meet grain shipment obligations, said Alberta’s agriculture minister.
Verlyn Olson said rail companies need to be made accountable for their poor grain service this winter.
“The consequences for inadequate service need to be immediate and shared by all to better insure our products move to port as quickly and efficiently as possible. When producers and grain companies don’t hold up their end of the bargain, they feel immediately in their pocket books…. The same can’t be said for railways when they don’t meet rail car allocation commitments,” said Olson during a news conference on the grain transportation troubles.
“If we are going to have a meaningful long-term improvement to the grain transportation system, an important step is ensuring we have greater financial accountability.”
Olson, along with federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz and other provincial agriculture ministers, plan to meet with railway officials in Winnipeg Monday to hear the railways’ solutions to the grain backlog.
“At a time when our agricultural community should be reaping the rewards of one of the best crops in recent memory, they are instead struggling just to getting the product to market.”
Because the railways fall under federal jurisdiction, any legislated changes would need to be made by the federal government.
Olson said there are no plans to build a third railway to the coasts in the next few months so some kind of financial accountability on the railways is the quickest solution to encouraging railroads to move grain.
“There does need to be an accountability and a sharing of the pain if the system is underperforming. The rail companies have a huge amount of control over the system given that in many, many cases they are the only game in town, yet they are not sharing in some of the suffering when they don’t meet their own targets.”
Olson also said he believes changes need to be made to the cash advance system to increase the $400,000 limit, increase the interest free period and allow overlapping of cash advances to help ease the financial burden of grain farmers not able to deliver grain.
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That didn't take too long - did it???
________________________________
Railroads should be forced to feel the financial pain, just like farmers and grain companies, when they don’t meet grain shipment obligations, said Alberta’s agriculture minister.
Verlyn Olson said rail companies need to be made accountable for their poor grain service this winter.
“The consequences for inadequate service need to be immediate and shared by all to better insure our products move to port as quickly and efficiently as possible. When producers and grain companies don’t hold up their end of the bargain, they feel immediately in their pocket books…. The same can’t be said for railways when they don’t meet rail car allocation commitments,” said Olson during a news conference on the grain transportation troubles.
“If we are going to have a meaningful long-term improvement to the grain transportation system, an important step is ensuring we have greater financial accountability.”
Olson, along with federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz and other provincial agriculture ministers, plan to meet with railway officials in Winnipeg Monday to hear the railways’ solutions to the grain backlog.
“At a time when our agricultural community should be reaping the rewards of one of the best crops in recent memory, they are instead struggling just to getting the product to market.”
Because the railways fall under federal jurisdiction, any legislated changes would need to be made by the federal government.
Olson said there are no plans to build a third railway to the coasts in the next few months so some kind of financial accountability on the railways is the quickest solution to encouraging railroads to move grain.
“There does need to be an accountability and a sharing of the pain if the system is underperforming. The rail companies have a huge amount of control over the system given that in many, many cases they are the only game in town, yet they are not sharing in some of the suffering when they don’t meet their own targets.”
Olson also said he believes changes need to be made to the cash advance system to increase the $400,000 limit, increase the interest free period and allow overlapping of cash advances to help ease the financial burden of grain farmers not able to deliver grain.
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That didn't take too long - did it???