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Missouri corn growers push for higher hauling limits

Missouri corn growers lobbied state lawmakers for higher grain hauling limits Tuesday.  The current limit is 80,000 pounds, but Missouri Corn Growers President Kevin Hurst says members favor a year-round exemption for grain, allowing weights that many other states have.

“Most of [surrounding states] run 85,500 pounds or better, and we would like to be able to haul that much too, because we’re at a competitive disadvantage when we don’t have that weight limit compared to the states around us,” said Hurst, who farms in the northwestern part of Missouri in Atchison County.

The provision in the Senate Omnibus Ag Bill is not year-round but would allow a 10 percent harvest season exemption up to 88,000 pounds.  Missouri Corn Growers Vice President Gary Porter farms right in between elevators in Missouri and Iowa.

“If I went to the Iowa market, I could weigh 90,000 pounds,” explained Porter, describing how he chose between the two elevators that were bidding identically for his corn.  “Four trucks could take the same amount of grain to the Iowa market as five trucks could take to the Missouri market, so therefore I went to the Iowa market, marketed my grain with four trucks instead of five, and it was just a lot more efficient.”

Freshman House lawmaker Tila Hubrecht represents a district in southeast Missouri and says it’s important to hear from farmers.

“We depend on the constituents to tell us exactly how is this going to impact their life, and how can we here in the state make it better,” Hubrecht told Brownfield Ag News after meeting with corn growers who farm in that part of the state.

The weight limit adjustment measure would also allow livestock producers to haul 85,500 pounds.