Prairie farmers will be hit hard by rail shutdown: expert [Video]

A local expert says the railway shutdown that started Wednesday evening will be detrimental to Prairie farmers.

“This is catastrophic to agriculture, to the province, in every facet,” Milt Miller of Providence Grain Solutions told CTV News Edmonton on Thursday morning.

“From the Edmonton region, down to Red Deer, across to the Saskatchewan border, there’s close to probably $17 million a day of grain deliveries being delivered to the various elevators and processing plants. All rely on rail to move it back out.”

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Miller says the $17 million figure only accounts for money spent by producers to grow their crops and doesn’t include profits, adding farmers will be forced to store their crops during the shutdown.

“It’s going to pile up in the field. It’s going to go into grain storage on the farms.”

“When …