As more pipelines are completed, farmers in North Dakota and across the Midwest once again have access to lower transportation costs as crude oil is transitioning away from rail shipments, allowing them to get their crops to market faster.

When the shale fracking boom started a decade ago, North Dakota didn’t have much in the way of pipelines to get oil to market. Back in 2014 when rail reached its peak, roughly 11 oil trains left North Dakota each day.

This proved a more costly — and arguably more dangerous — method of transportation.

Read more – Inside Energy

Recently, the Ohio State Grange issued a report detailing the energy use of Ohio’s farmers and the burden high energy costs have on keeping our family farms operating across generations.  New energy infrastructure, like pipelines, can help relieve some of the burden facing our farmers.

Ohio’s farmers compete in an increasingly tough global marketplace. Our competition comes not only from other Midwestern states. We go up against farmers thousands of miles away, and all of this competition puts constant pressure on prices. It is extremely tough to keep a farm profitable these days, which is why we need to take advantage of every efficiency and cost-cutting measure we can.

One major and particularly challenging expense is energy. Farmers can shop around for deals on feed or equipment, but energy expenditures are tougher to manage. You can’t take the pickup truck down to the energy store and stock up on power during a clearance sale. Farmers have to hope that energy providers can find ways to lower costs.

Read more – Herald-Star