Railroad Issues Make California Dairy Producer Worry About Growing Corn Shortages

Despite high milk prices, California dairy producer Darlene Lopes is growing frustrated. She worries that soon no corn will be available to feed her herd of 4,000 Holsteins cows.

“We are running out of corn here in California,” she says. “We are all on emergency corn rationing.”

Lopes’ patience is wearing thin, as she tries to get to the bottom of why farms like hers are being allocated with contracted corn and more importantly when this problem will be fixed.

“I need corn today to feed my cows,” she says. 

Lopes says this is the third time her farm has been short on delivered contracted corn this year, and the situation is only growing more dire.

“This time every feed company in California is out of corn and waiting on a train,” she reports.

According to Robin Schmahl, branch manager of AgDairy, there continue to be ongoing issues with grain moving to areas of the Southwest and West due to delays in rail service. 

“There have been some issues previously, but wait times have increased significantly over the past few months,” he reports. “Some grain suppliers have actually run out of grain for a day or two before receiving a shipment.”

Earlier this week, Lopes reports that her feed company’s train came in and that they are unloading it.

“We were allocated one load on Tuesday, two on Wednesday and two on Thursday,” she shares. “Then we will be out again.”

Lopes farms alongside her husband, Paul, and their son, Tony. In addition to the dairy, the family manages a 2,500 head of Angus-Crossbred cattle and farms approximately 2,100 acres of corn, oats, wheat, Sudan and alfalfa.

All of Lopes’ corn for June is contracted and yet they are not receiving all their corn.

“I use 11 truckloads a week,” she reports.

Schmahl says feed competitors have been working together to make sure livestock are being fed.

“The issue is not that there is no grain available, but the railroad workforce is less than required to keep trains running on schedule,” he says. “Lack of railroad workers is the greatest issue coupled with a few other issues that have impacted efficient service.”

While there is no good time to be out of corn, the problem grows urgent as the California central valley heat is about to hit. Retooling rations isn’t ideal, and cows often don’t come back into full production until the next lactation.

Schmahl says that the issue is not getting any better and is a significant concern for livestock and poultry producers.

“We are already losing production,” Lopes says.

Randy Edwards, a ruminant nutritionist with Alpha Dairy Consulting, concurs with Schmahl and says that the corn shortage has been a huge burden on California producers, especially those north of Fresno.

“There’s a number of train cars in Arizona that were derailed recently; Foster Farms and Associated Feed & Supply ran out of corn in the matter of a day,” Edwards reports.

Schmahl says producers are having to adjust their feed rations to accommodate what feed is available at times.

Although Edwards says replacing rolled corn is difficult to do, as other feed alternatives don’t offer the same feed value.

“You can attempt to replace corn with some corn silage, bakery, mill run, barley, rolled oats, ground wheat, corn gluten, molasses, corn germ, etc.,” he says. “But, some of these products can be difficult to find readily available in bulk. It can be challenging to bring in some of these commodities to replace the starch coming from corn in your diets without giving up too much effective fiber.”

In the meantime, Lopes tries to stay optimistic, but worries that the weeks to come won’t deliver any better outcome, with corn amounts continued being limited to farmers.

“I wish people knew just how bad this situation is,” she says. “This simply cannot continue.”