Farmers growing anxious due to CP Rail labour dispute

The work stoppage at Canadian Pacific Railway is leaving many farmers worried about the upcoming growing season.

A lack of railway transportation is set to have an impact on farmers across the board, not to mention the impact it will have on feed and fertilizer supply.

Steven Donald, who farms in the Moosomin area, said producers could be in some trouble with the labour dispute happening at this particular point.

“What I’m worried about for most farmers will be that a lot of fertilizer is actually brought in on the railroad and if the railroad’s not moving — being that spring is probably six week away for seeding — logistics-wise and getting fertilizer to the plants will be an issue,” Donald said.

“Grain movement always has been a concern on our end. (The railroads) already were working below capacity even before the rail strike started. Transportation rail issues with grain shipments is always an issue here.”

The impact of labour disputes in the railway sector has been an issue dating back several years, according to Donald. But he considers it a consolation that this stoppage happened after a slower year in terms of grain being produced.

“It’s not a good job that we had a drought last year, but the amount of grain that farmers actually produced last year was significantly less than the year before and yet (the railroads) were behind on shipments,” Donald said.

“The hidden blessing is that the producers didn’t have as much to ship. But if we would have had a traditional grain year, there would have been a lot of noise made (in the case of a stoppage) two (or) three months ago.”

Donald said the timing of the labour dispute isn’t good, even if farmers did have less grain to ship due to the drought.

“I don’t think there ever is a good time for a rail strike, simply because we’re so dependent on railroads to move our commodities basically (because of) where we are in the country,” he said.