Diesel over $6 has more than doubled railroad fuel surcharges. As harvest starts, the cost of shipping grain may land on the farmer.

Pour a cup and brace yourself, especially if you farm. Railroad fuel surcharges have more than doubled in the past year as diesel prices have climbed over $6 a gallon, Harvest Public Media reports via KCUR, and harvest is just getting started. Railroads carry about 1.6 million carloads of grain a year, 24% of domestic grain movements, per the Association of American Railroads. Fuel surcharges aren't unusual, but when they rise, the cost often trickles down to farmers as lower crop prices, says Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition. If shippers try to pass the cost to an importer overseas, he said, the likely answer is: "I guess I'm going to buy more soybeans from Brazil or Argentina." Shippers don't want to eat it either. "So a lot of times the farmer just simply has to absorb that cost," Steenhoek said. How much is still hard to pin down. North Dakota State University economist David Ripplinger noted prices are already low with all the harvest supply coming online, and said "parsing out the exact impact of high diesel prices would take a little bit of math that I haven't done." Indiana Farm Bureau's Todd Davis hasn't seen bids move much beyond normal harvest patterns yet. Steenhoek also warned that Union Pacific's proposed purchase of Norfolk Southern could raise base costs, since fewer competing railroads often means higher rates. Illinois farmer Adam Henkel says the surcharge rarely shows up as a line item. "I did not lose money this year, but I'm not gonna sit here and brag about having a record year," he said. Store-owner math: a cost has to land somewhere, and it lands on whoever has the fewest places to take his business. A farmer with one elevator in driving range doesn't get to shop around. Kitchen-table translation: a thinner check per bushel means tighter budgets across farm towns. Markets don't vote, but they do keep score.