Pa. farmers harvesting solutions for trucking woes

Pa. farmers harvesting solutions for trucking woes
Monday, March 15, 2010
By DOUGLAS B. BRILL
The Express-Times

On any given morning during harvest season, Bethlehem Township, Pa., farmer Dennis Koehler drives a truck from his farmhouse to a field and with a combine begins to collect crops.

Koehler fills the truck with corn, soy, wheat or barley in about 10 minutes just as a second farmer arrives in an empty truck. Dale A. Koehler Farms plucks food from its fields just like that -- empty truck in, full truck out every 10 minutes -- hours on end most harvest mornings.

But new rules proposed for farm trucks would tack a 10-minute vehicle safety inspection onto each 10-minute ride, meaning the Koehlers could work with clockwork precision yet have only half a clock.

"If you have two less hauls per day because you're filling out paperwork, that's two less hauls," said Koehler, who is the Lehigh Valley's representative to the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. "You don't have time to fill out paperwork. You need to drive the truck."

The farm bureau says new regulations from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation are likely to decrease farming productivity and could drive some farmers out of business.

Koehler and the bureau spent the past week lobbying in Washington, D.C., for exemptions from the new rules.

Up to $22 million at stake

The changes that would affect farmers come under Pennsylvania's motor carrier enforcement code. In a move to retain federal funding, PennDOT plans before the end of the month to align its code with that of the federal government.

Doing so would ensure Pennsylvania continues to receive at least $3.1 million per year that state police use to inspect commercial vehicles. Other estimates have put the funding between $8.7 million to as much as $22 million.

The rule change is aimed at commercial trucks such as 18-wheelers. But the federal motor carrier code, unlike Pennsylvania's, doesn't exempt farmers.