2020 Fall Farm Outlook

PAGE 24 2020 Logan County Farm Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS October 28, 2020 the demand for truck drivers will increase 2% between 2020 and 2029. According to the American Trucking Association in 2018 the shortage of truck drivers was 60,800.” With the increase in demand across all industries for truckers and the decrease in supply, the gap is going to be widening over the next ten years if there is not a shift somewhere. Locally, grain haulers play an important role in our community as harvest especially brings on the need for more drivers and more trucks. But grain haulers are in demand at other times of the year as well. While harvest is when most people notice corn and soybeans in trucks on the highway, on a daily basis elevators and terminals throughout the Midwest are shipping grain with three basic modes of transportation - truck, rail and barge. Of the three modes, trucking is by far the most used. In 2016, an estimated 300 million tons of corn was shipped domestic in the United States. Of this tonnage, 50 million tons was shipped by rail, less than 10 million tons were shipped by barge and the balance, about 240 million tons, was shipped by truck. While the national statistic indicates that there is very little barge transportation overall, in this region it is a popular form of transporting grain. This year in particular, there will be a gap created by the closure of the Illinois River to barge traffic. Locally this impacts the terminal in Havana where barges are loaded and floated downriver to the Mississippi. Trucking and rail will have to make up that difference, thus increasing the demand yet again for trucks and truckers. CONTINUE X