Farmers first to be affected by rail shutdown: Dalhousie professor

The shutdown of the railway system in Canada is expected to impact people from all walks of life, but a Dalhousie professor thinks farmers will be the first to feel the brunt of the closure.

In an interview with CTV News Atlantic’s Todd Battis on Thursday, Sylvain Charlebois, director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, said farmers and manufacturers are in a vulnerable position as the first full day of the shutdown drags on.

“We’re in day one and it’s impacting farmers right away,” he said. “In the Atlantic and elsewhere it’s harvest time. (Farmers) don’t have access to market.

“Right now the most vulnerable node is farming and after that you have manufacturing. Let’s say you produce cake and you need an ingredient stuck in Halifax or Vancouver. You’re going to lay off some people because you can’t produce anything. You’re always one ingredient away from creating a bottleneck.”

Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City locked out hundreds of employees early Thursday after months of negotiations.

Charlebois said he’s spoken with several companies and found many of them have prepared for the shutdown.

“They have some inventory,” he said. “We are expecting some empty shelves. As soon as you go from rails to wheels, it doubles your transportation costs. Perishability could be an issue.”

Charlebois said customers could begin to notice issues at stores if the shutdown drags past five or seven days.

“Seven days is a lot,” he said. “It takes seven days to recover from one day of stoppage. It would require more than a month to recover from a week of shutdown, which is why it’s so critical we see this resolved.”