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Truckers make livings hauling Kansas grain long after harvests are done.
From the Hillsboro Free Press
Stan Vogel was waiting in line at 8 a.m. one day this week, long after wheat harvest, to unload a truck full of wheat just as he has most of this month.
You may think this sounds more like something from wheat harvest time in
June, but remember that the activity and economics generated from wheat
aren’t over when the crop leaves the farm.
As a matter of fact, Vogel, who lives in Hillsboro, said he and fellow
independent trucker Marvin Bernhardt, who lives near Marion, are only
about a third done hauling wheat from storage at Canada (Kansas) for Cooperative Grain & Supply. They move the grain in semi-trucks at 900 to 950 bushels
at a time.
Most of the wheat is going to Cereal Foods in Wichita, where it is
processed for flour and then distributed over a wide area.
Vogel expected wheat hauling from Canada to be a three-month job, but
even that won’t be the end of the grain hauling. The push is on, he
said, because most farmers sold wheat with the higher prices instead of
storing it, and the grain elevators don’t want to store it without
farmers’ storage fees to collect—a classic case of supply and demand
economics.
Obviously, independent grain haulers and the commodities they haul have
a profound economic effect on the region.
Dick Tippin, Team Marketing Alliance representative at CG&S in
Hillsboro, said CG&S and most of the member co-ops at TMA use
owner-operator independent truck drivers.
In Marion County, the local co-op calls mostly on Vogel and Bernhardt
for the work, or on J.L. Unruh out of Harvey County. But Tippin said
independent truckers can at times come from all over the place.
“We get trucks following the harvest that may be here from Oklahoma or
Nebraska,” he said.
Mo Stephan, TMA merchandiser and logistics coordinator at Moundridge,
said the importance of owner-operator truck drivers is more easily
understood when you realize that a large number of grain elevators have
lost railroad service.
“It’s like they’ve become landlocked,” he said. “They don’t have water
frontage, but the railroads don’t get to them either. It’s the truckers
that can get to them.
“The days are gone, too, when every elevator could have some rail cars
to load on a siding. It takes a package of 100 cars to get the
railroad’s attention. You’re not going to put that together at most farm
elevators—it takes a terminal or a group together.
“It used to be that most elevators typically would ship out 80 percent
by rail and 20 percent trucks. Now it’s 100 percent trucks in many areas.”
Stephan said CG&S will typically contribute about 2 million bushels of
wheat to the TMA sales effort.
Stan Utting, manager of Agri Producers Inc., with headquarters at Tampa,
said his cooperative typically will sell 3 million bushels of
wheat—out-contributing CG&S because it has more locations.
Although Agri Producers is fortunate in still having elevators on rail
lines, and still being able to ship a lot by rail at times, truckers are
important in the effort to ship grain to millers at Newton, Salina,
Abilene, Kansas City and other points, Utting said.
Agri Producers keeps two of its own trucks hauling grain on the road,
but also calls on independents like Dale Unruh of Galva, Howard Trucking
and Zook Trucking of Abilene, and Larry Swayze of Lincolnville.
Agri Producers also ships a lot of milo by rail and truck, some of it
ending up as far away as Mexico for livestock feed, Utting said.
Vogel and his fellow truckers always try to be hauling something, and
Vogel said milo and fuel involve him in one of those economic cycles
that intrigue him.
He said he’ll haul CG&S local milo to the High Plains plant at Colwich
for processing into ethyl alcohol, ethanol. Later, he’ll get a call to
haul gasoline from the refinery at McPherson for the Ampride stores in
Marion and Hillsboro, which will include gasahol with ethanol in it
processed at High Plains.
“People here can be burning their own milo for fuel that I hauled both
ways,” he said. “It’s good because it burns a lot cleaner. At Colwich,
they burn natural gas to make alcohol, and a lot of it comes from
methane piped from Brooks Landfill.”
Vogel also likes to know where the wheat goes, and how some may come
back to this area. At Cereal Foods, he’ll see flour shipped out both by
rail and truck, and even though he stays busy, he gets the chance to
observe, and talk to other truckers.
“My goal is to get there at least three times a day, five days a week,
and Cereal Foods is only open 8 a.m. to 3 p.m,” he said. “I’ll still
want to haul a load of gasoline or something most of the time after
that. I have a goal to drive 10,000 miles a month.
“A lot of times at Cereal, we’ll set four, five hours at a time in line
waiting for other trucks to get unloaded. After a while you kind of get
to know people, what’s going on.
“Some times I’ll see a truckload of flour leave for Tony’s Pizza in
Salina. So when you pop a frozen pizza into the oven here, you could end
up eating our own wheat.
“There’s a guy from Springfield, Mo., hauling flour for Sarah Lee.”
Sometimes he’ll see another terminal—Cargill in Wichita—because TMA sold
co-op grain to them.
“That’s two competitors there, Cereal and Cargill,” Vogel said.
“Sometimes one will need the grain, and they’ll bid the price up, back
and forth, that’s the way the market works.”
Since Vogel began hauling for CG&S, and may be hauling products in for
them such as fertilizer, his semi tractor has a CG&S sign on its side.
But TMA can dispatch him and Bernhardt, as well as other truckers, “all
over the place” hauling grain for member cooperatives.
Last year Vogel spent time hauling from the Bridgeport elevator near
McPherson and Lindsborg. Then there was a crisis time at Goessel, when
the farmers were backed up to dump wheat at harvest time, and the
elevator was running full between truckloads out to Wichita.
“They sure were glad to see a semi come in to haul a load out,” Vogel said.
He hauls soybeans out, too, but the hours are more convenient than at
Cereal Foods because the Cargill soybean processing plant is open 24
hours a day.
Vogel worked through Williams Truck Sales at Florence to put together a
semi tractor with Cornhusker two-hopper trailer that uses aluminum
construction as much as possible to keep rig weight down to 23,200
pounds, both for fuel economy and to save weight for load. Tanks,
exterior housing and as much framing as possible are aluminum for
lighter weight than steel.
Vogel said that even though the cooperative has leased his semi and
services since 1983, he still is the owner-operator interested in
maintaining his own efficiency and profitability.
“They spell out how the loads are set, and I don’t work for their
competitors unless it’s through some understanding with them,” he said.
“They’ve been good that way.
“I’ve driven since 1974, and I figure I’ve done something in the
neighborhood of 3 million miles. It seems like a lot to me.”
He values the fact that the cooperatives respect the law, and don’t
expect him to drive more miles than he can legally.
Vogel said that truck drivers are subjected by the state to random drug
checks, “just like airline pilots.” He feels that this and other Kansas
Department of Transportation regulations have worked out well for the
welfare of truckers and the general public.
Vogel has been able to include his son, Jeff, 22, who just graduated in
agronomy from Kansas State University last week, in the business as a
part-time truck driver during particularly busy times.
Jeff worked for CG&S two years, and last summer worked for Crop Quest, a
crop-consulting company for farmers in such areas as irrigation.
“He really likes crops,” Vogel said, and the trucking business has
helped ground him in the marketing of grain as well as his education and
background have in the production.
Vogel gets help in receiving truck calls from his wife, Joanne, and
their daughter, Megan,17. His oldest son, C.J., 28, left the business to
become a certified public accountant in Dallas.
Vogel grew up on a farm north of Marion, but found the experience mainly
developed his interest in small business, trucking and marketing.
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