Moving Grain, an Introduction
How does the food we eat get from farmers to our plates? How does grain grown in Montana get to Indonesia? What equipment gets used to safely transport millions of tons of food across the world?
Companies like Cargill and ADM, the global companies, use massive amounts of machinery and complex systems to coordinate all of their shipping needs.
Cargill started their own shipping companies instead of hiring or using other competitors. For example, in North America Cargill has its Meat Logistics Solutions Transport Service that other companies can hire. Obviously, they use those trucks to transport their own products. These trucks tow refrigerated, temperature controlled trailers that handle meat, produce, dry good, general freight and even livestock. Suffice it to say that Cargill ships just about anything on those trucks.
It will be interesting to see how these companies transition to utilizing self driving trucks and how the automation technology will upset the industry. Be on the look out for companies to begin to offer self-driving truck services in the medium to long term.
There are many other methods of transporting goods across North America. Train, barge, and cargo plane are all utilized. A train is often considered the most efficient method of transportation.
Is that true?
First you have to define what efficient means. In this case we will use the definition of energy used per tonnage. In that case rail freight is the most efficient method of transport within a continent; however it is not the most used. Trucking is the most utilized method of transport within the United States due to the extensive network of Interstates. Trucking accounts for approx. 70% of all shipping tonnage within the United States in 2007 [1]. With the advent of new driver-less trucks- you can expect that number to only climb-even a little bit.
How do perishable goods get shipped across the world without going bad?
Companies utilize refrigerated containers that are able to be lifted directly from a ship onto a truck or train and vice versa. This allows the goods to never leave their container and stay at a consistent temperature. These units need some form of power to be able to maintain the temperatures, so how do they work?
When refrigeration is on a truck or train they are powered by Diesel generators, or Gen-sets, that give the unit power to vent or run its water cooling system. When on a land site or a ship they are powered by electrical power points, reefer points, to give them their power.
The containers have two methods of cooling themselves down. They can either use ventilation or a water cooling system. The ventilation is the most common by far due to the price of the water cooling system.
The ventilation system simply allows the heat to escape outside of the container and are capable of maintaining any temperature from -65C to 40C [2]. The water cooled containers are capable of the same temperatures and use water to reduce heat from the containers.
However, there is another method of cooling a reefer container but it is usually used on short trips. That is Total Loss Refrigeration. Dry ice is used to keep the temperature steady. Ice is placed in the container and melts at a certain rate that allows the temperature to level out and go steady. This method is the cheapest but can only be used on short trips because you need a consistent supply of dry ice.
How do grains go from farm to table?
After a farmer harvests his/her grain, they store it on their farm while waiting to sell it. Then when the time (read: price) is right they sell it to a grain elevator. This elevator is a storage facility that takes in grain from all over the place and stores it for mass shipment. This cuts down on the shipments costs per ton. So now the grain is out of the farmer’s hands and into a company’s hand.
Corn for instance is marked for sale, with 44% of US corn being used for feed, 31% for ethanol production, 4% for high fructose corn syrup, 14% being exported and 7% to miscellaneous industrial uses [3]. This represents how much grain is used for purposes other than human consumption.
There is a trend of large grain elevators not so much smaller ones. This gives you more bulk shipments and cheaper transport costs per ton. These ‘Super Elevators’ are the final destination of other smaller elevators that can be considered ‘satellites’ and are simply a stopping point on a grains route to the ‘Super Elevator’.
Methods of transportation vary between grains but even more so between distances. A truck is used for shorter distances (usually less than 500 miles) with a train being used for longer distances. But if there is a waterway available then a barge will be utilized for longer distances due to the reduced costs.
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1- By Weight and Value, Most Goods Are Moved on Trucks, but the Amount of Freight Moved by Rail Is Comparable When One Considers the Amount Multiplied by Distance as Measured in Ton-miles (see Figure 1). “Freight Transportation.” Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2016.
2- “Refrigerated Containers.” Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 31 July 2016. Web. 02 Nov. 2016.
3- “THE TRANSPORTATION OF GRAIN — Envision Freight.” Envision Freight. Envision Freight, n.d. Web. 2 Nov. 2016.
