A huge increase in grain production in the Northern Plains over the past decade is an unspoken factor in the transportation snarls reported in the region, says economist David Widmar in the blog Agricultural Economic Insights. “While several factors are playing into the rail shipping issues, it’s important to keep in mind that a region increasing grain production by nearly 38% in a short period of time is likely to create logistic issues by itself,” writes Widmar. He calculates that Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota now produce an additional 960 million bushels of corn, wheat and soybeans than their average in 2003 and 2004.
Corn output was up 50 percent and soybeans up 34 percent while wheat was stable. Most commonly mentioned causes for rail shipping delays are competition from the oil shale boom in North Dakota and the harsh winter of 2013-14.