For farmers already battling rising input costs, weaker commodity prices and narrowing margins, the surge in fuel prices is creating another financial threat that can be easy to overlook: transportation fuel surcharges are increasingly coming out of the farmer’s pocket.
Diesel prices above $6 per gallon are a painful expense on the farm, particularly during harvest and other periods when equipment is running hard. But the financial damage does not stop when a farmer shuts off the tractor.
Higher fuel costs are also showing up in the surcharges transportation companies impose to move agricultural commodities from the farm country to domestic processors, export terminals and ultimately overseas markets.
Mike Steenhoek, executive director of the Soy Transportation Coalition, says those charges have climbed dramatically over the past year—and farmers are often the ones ultimately absorbing the increase.
“Another way high fuel costs insert themselves into agriculture and the broader economy is in the form of fuel surcharges instituted by various transportation providers,” Steenhoek says.
That includes railroads moving soybeans from production areas to major markets.
According to USDA data compiled by Steenhoek, fuel surcharges on several soybean rail routes have surged since September 2025.
The increases are striking.
For soybeans moving from Argyle, Minnesota, to Seattle on BNSF Railway, the fuel surcharge per railcar jumped from $168 on Sept. 11, 2025, to $611 on Sept. 10, 2026—a 364% increase.
The surcharge on soybeans moving from Casselton, North Dakota, to Seattle increased from $162 to $592 per railcar, a 366% increase.
From Mitchell, South Dakota, to Seattle, the BNSF surcharge climbed from $179 to $655—a 367% increase.
Other routes have seen similarly sharp increases. The surcharge for soybeans moving from Enderlin, North Dakota, to East St. Louis, Illinois, on CPKC rose from $389 to $813 per car, up 209%.
On Canadian National’s route from Gibson City, Illinois, to Reserve, Louisiana, the surcharge increased from $339 to $605, a 179% jump.
Union Pacific’s fuel surcharge for soybeans moving from Canton, Kansas, to Houston rose from $254 to $433 per car, while the charge from Cozad, Nebraska, to Kalama, Washington, increased from $531 to $906.
For farmers, however, the concern is not simply the size of the surcharge itself. It is who ultimately pays for it.
Steenhoek says transportation costs in agriculture are frequently pushed back through the supply chain until they reach the producer in the form of a lower price for the commodity.
That means a higher transportation bill can translate into a weaker basis at the local elevator.
“In any industry, when transportation costs go up, there are three options,” Steenhoek explains. “Pass those costs onto the customer in the form of higher prices; the shipper absorbing those costs; or passing those costs onto the supplier in the form of a lower price offered.”
Agriculture, particularly globally traded commodities such as soybeans, often leaves little room for the second option.
Exporters and other shippers cannot simply raise prices enough to cover every increase in transportation costs without risking their competitiveness in the global marketplace.
For U.S. soybeans, that competition is especially intense.
If the cost of delivering U.S. soybeans to an international buyer becomes too high, Steenhoek says that buyer has another option.
“Today is a good day to start purchasing more soybeans from Brazil,” he says, describing the potential reaction from an international customer faced with higher U.S. transportation costs.
That puts additional pressure on the U.S. supply chain—and ultimately on the farmer.
The result is what Steenhoek describes as another “leak in the profitability bucket” for producers already operating in a challenging economic environment.
Farmers may not see a railroad fuel surcharge listed on their settlement sheet. Instead, its impact can be buried deeper in the marketing chain, showing up as a less favorable basis or a lower price offered for their soybeans.
That makes transportation efficiency—and the cost of moving grain—an increasingly important part of farm profitability.
For producers heading into harvest, the warning is straightforward: the price of fuel is not just what farmers pay at the pump.
It can also be embedded in the cost of moving every bushel from the farm to its final destination.
And with diesel prices already above $6 per gallon, Steenhoek says farmers have plenty of reason to be watching what happens at the pump—and hoping for relief.
“Fuel surcharges are one more example of a leak in the profitability bucket farmers are currently experiencing and another reason why farmers are among those most anxious to see future relief at the pump,” he says.
