Eastern Iowa Farmer Fall 2016

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Wet and overcast is weather as usual once a bushel of eastern Iowa corn or soybeans reach bluewater terminals like the newly expanded TEMCO facility at Kalama, Washington. A 220-car BNSF unit train can be unloaded in 8.5 hours flat. Photo courtesy BNSF From the back forty to the bluewater Area corn and soybean growers’ harvest can travel far and wide Once the 2016 harvest leaves the field this fall in eastern Iowa, its destination is not of pressing interest. Rarely do producers get the chance to follow a bushel of corn or soybeans on even a part of its journey, especially if it’s headed for export. Not many have ever seen a huge ocean-going bulk carrier, a 35,000-metric-ton vessel loaded with their grain bound for foreign markets. 88 Eastern Iowa Farmer | fall 2016
eastern iowa farmer photo / Lowell Carlson Corn grown on eastern Iowa farms like the Larry Johnson farm east of Maquoketa moves quickly from field to storage to market. The journey for export corn and soybeans can end thousands of miles away and across the Pacific. Once the crop disappears into an area terminal elevator’s gigantic storage facilities, that’s it for most producers. Besides, it may go into storage for months before beginning the journey. With plenty of 2015 crop still stored, that is a real possibility. Here in the upper Mississippi Valley corridor, we have the distinct advantage of water, highway and rail for crop movement. Barge transport is the lynch pin for bulk grain shipments here in the Mississippi River corridor, but the diversion to other transport, and uses, like ethanol, has changed that equation. Barge transport, hands down, is the cheapest per ton mile but is limited by weather when locks shut down from December into March. Trucks dominate for local and regional hauls, of course. Class I railroads, like Warren Buffett’s BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe), Union Pacific and Canadian Pacific have invested heavily in commodity transportation facilities and focused on unit trains, a train made entirely of specific cars, destined for the same location. That development has had a dramatic and far-reaching impact. These new trains bypassed small country elevators that didn’t become high speed loadout facilities. They cut shipping on the Great Lakes and made the Pacific Northwest ports like Vancouver, Tacoma and others busy rail and ocean shipping hubs. Right now about 25 percent of all grain bound for export markets moves through terminals in the Pacific Northwest, and nearly half of all wheat exports move through Columbia River and Puget Sound grain terminals. Nearly all of the soybeans shipped out of the Northwest head to China. Yellow dent corn goes primarily to Korea, Japan, Philippines and China. Middle East markets are also served by Pacific Northwest terminals. Iowa State University ag economists say, under most circumstances, the most fuel-efficient route for shipping grain from Iowa is through West Coast ports, even though it has not been the most efficient route. That is changing. At places like Kalama, Washington, corn, soybeans and wheat from Iowa and the Midwest move in volumes that stagger the imagination. The TEMCO Kalama Terminal is one of a number of facilities in the Northwest undergoing upgrade. A joint venture by Cargill and CHS, a mega farmer-owned cooperative, Kalama is state-of-the-art technology. The rail yard is capable of accommodating four shuttle trains, about 450 railcars. The grain terminal can unload two shuttles simultaneously and move and discharge 120,000 bushels per hour into moored bulk carriers. Rail receiving unloading rates are 115,000 bushels per hour, and it takes 8.5 hours to unload a unit train. Cargill pioneered the idea of grain unit trains back in the mid-1960s with the Illinois Central when an elevator arranged for 115 jumbo cars to haul 400,000 bushels of corn to New Orleans, 1,300 miles away. The unit train actually originated with the coal industry. In some cases, unit train rates were half the cost of single car rates. With 94 storage silos and steel bins the expanded export terminal expects to move 250 million bushels a year. During peak operations it moves up to two million bushels every 24 hours. All this with a staff of 50 people working in the rail department, storage, and loading. n — lowell carlson, eastern iowa farmer fall 2016 | Eastern Iowa Farmer 89
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