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By Zeke Campfield
The Lawton Constitution LAWTON, Okla. - It may not be the biggest crop on the books, but this spring's winter wheat harvest may certainly be the most memorable in Southwest Oklahoma.
In response to transportation delays and storage issues that have plagued area farmers for years, a number of grain elevators and co-ops are finding now a suitable time to upgrade and expand their facilities.
Barney Trammell, manager of the Farmer's Co-op at Eldorado, said in two weeks he will have completed construction of a transport shuttle that will allow him to load 50,000 bushels an hour.
The multimillion dollar project included the laying of a 123-car circle railroad track "the only one of its kind," he said as well as construction of two new grain bins that hold 502,000 bushels apiece.
"It's humongous. You can see it as you come into town," Trammell said. "From my understanding, this shuttle is the largest one in the United States."
And just last week, a Nebraska-based corporation, Gavilon Grain LLC, announced its plans to construct a similar shuttle west of Headrick.
Company officials said their facility, which will be accepting grain in time for this spring's harvest, will include a similar high-speed shuttle with the ability to load and unload 60,000 bushels per hour on a 110-car track.
Gavilon which operates a similar facility in Catoosa and Wichita Falls will also be constructing a 200-foot elevator, capable of storing 1.3 million bushels, the company said.
Suann Lundsberg, a spokesperson for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, said the system in Eldorado and near Headrick will be different from other co-ops and elevators because the railway will provide a dedicated train for the service, as opposed to single-car service.
"The benefit of a shuttle train is that it's a full-unit train," Lundsberg said. "There are efficiencies gained from that, and those efficiencies are passed on back to the customer."
In addition, Co-op Services Inc. in Grandfield replaced eight old grain bins and added 25,000 bushels of storage in January, and Cassidy Grain Co. in Frederick is in the process of building two new 200,000-bushel bins.
"We are also adding a new dump pit and a 20,000-bushel-per-hour leg," said owner Brent Cassidy. "There won't be any lines now."
At co-ops and elevators across Southwest Oklahoma, a bumper wheat crop in 2008 served as a motivator to upgrade, said Mike Schulte, director of the Oklahoma Wheat Commission.
"It tied up the lines in that part of the world and we weren't able to ship the grain out fast enough to get it to the places it needs to go," he said.
Relying on a single-car service has been a risky hedge for local facility owners because they often have to order the rail cars two or three months in advance.
He said it's common for it to take two or three days for one of these local facilities to load up a 100-car train.
"So there is a lot of expansion going on in the southwest part of the state, and a lot of it comes from a transportation perspective of being able to source what customers want at a faster level," Schulte said. "We need to look at the infrastructure that's been there 50 or 60 years and see how we can ramp that up."
Trammell said his co-op also will benefit from reduced rates for the railway service.
"So it kind of gives the farmers an extra amount of money for their wheat," he said. "What this basically does is put 40 cents back into the producers' pockets."
He said the need for expansion in Eldorado was first discussed more than a decade ago.
The problem was that farmers in North Texas, some as far as 100 miles away, do not have adequate access to railroads, Trammell said, and Eldorado did not have the storage space.
Jantz Bain, general manager of Humphrey's Co-op, just south of the Gavilon site, said it's likely Gavilon is capitalizing on the same market farmers who can't get their wheat to market except they will be looking north.
"It's probably the biggest thing to happen in Southwest Oklahoma in 40 years," Bain said. "It has a potential to revolutionize the way we handle wheat down here."
Bain said larger combines and higher per-acreage yields due to genetically modified wheat and new biotechnologies have been putting a strain on the local co-ops for years.
He said the local co-ops, too, may have to depend on the new storage space for their members' wheat.
"We're getting few acres, but we're getting more yield off those acres," Bain said. "So we're hoping they'll come in and be a good neighbor and utilize the co-ops. Then maybe we can all live together and be fine."
But, Bain said, until the shuttles open and a few crops harvested, it's all a guessing game.
"The shuttle loader is going to draw some business towards it, so if you're a small co-op on the fringe of that you're obviously going to lose some bushels," he said. "And it's going to cause some consolidation, but maybe that needed to happen anyway."
Jerry Lucas, who farms near Elmer, said he'll stick with the co-ops, thank you very much.
"The co-op will pay dividends and make a profit the independent grain companies, they stick it in their pocket and run," Lucas said. "All in all, competition makes better prices so it's a good deal. But personally, I'm a co-op man."
Gary Strickland, OSU Extension Educator for Jackson County, agreed the new facilities will increase competition, but said he thinks it will pay off during those bumper crop years."It just means there's not a question of where they will be able to take grain," Strickland said. "And when you get into a situation this is not just about our area. North of us, if they have a bumper crop year they've gotta have some place to go with that grain, too, and if the elevators can't handle the grain, or they need to move it, where are they going to move it to? This gives two more sites." |
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