Local farmers could ship grain as far as South Carolina if a new agriculture rail station opens in the Havre de Grace area.
Harford and Cecil counties, using a $40,000 federal grant, are working together determine where the station should be to best benefit farmers in the area and in counties on the Eastern Shore.
With rising gas costs, farmers said the station would save them thousands of dollars and enable them to ship farther.
The station would serve Norfolk Southern Railway and be used initially for shipping soybeans to the Carolinas.
“It?s opening up a whole new market” in the Carolinas, said Andi Rigdon of Rigdon Farms in Jarrettsville. “It?s like anything else: The more buyers you have, the more money you can make.”
The only other agriculture rail station in the area had operated in Baltimore but closed two years ago, officials said.
“There is nothing in our area ? pretty much on the Eastern Shorn ? like it,” said Signe Hippert, a loan specialist for rural development at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which awarded the grant. “So they incur some pretty large costs in trucking expenses, especially with the increase in gas prices.”
The station would give local farmers a big boost, said Michael Phipps, head of the Maryland Farm Bureau.
“We can grow some of the best crops around, but if we can?t get them out to the market, they?re pretty much useless,” he said.
Corn, soybeans, wheat and barley are major income sources for farmers in northern and eastern Maryland and southeastern Pennsylvania, said John Sullivan, the head of Harford?s division of agriculture.
“Right now, corn and soybean prices are relatively high, so if we can find another market, it?s that much better,” Sullivan said.
