A farmer is not a trucker
State transportation regulators back down 

Your messages, e-mails and engagement worked. The Kansas Corporation Commission no longer considers transportation from the farm field to the country elevator as interstate commerce, unless you actually cross a state line.    

The KCC, which regulates transportation in Kansas, had sought to change that designation using the logic that eventually, that grain will be shipped from state to state. Doing so would have brought the farm truck under a host of new regulations that until now have been reserved only for commercial over-the-road truckers.   

Kansas Farm Bureau engaged their Congressional and legislative friends and the result is farmers will be able to continue to operate their farm trucks as they have for decades without new, unwarranted regulation.     

Because of the advocacy of your farm organization and others, the KCC has created new policy guidance and is currently reviewing the case law they had relied upon to change their initial interpretation. The bottom line – when it comes to the way farmers and ranchers operate and manage farm trucks, it’s business as usual across Kansas.   

Farmer/rancher members of Kansas Farm Bureau were instrumental in bringing this issue to the attention of state lawmakers this winter, during KFB’s Day at the Statehouse. 

“Ever since farm trucks were invented, we’ve hauled grain from the farm to the elevator and it’s worked great,” said Kansas Sen. Steve Morris (Hugoton), who serves as president of the Senate.  

KFB is also working closely with the Kansas Congressional delegation, including U.S. Rep. Jerry Moran (Kansas) to seek clarification of the underlying U.S. Department of Transportation intent.  

“A farmer is a farmer, not a trucker,” Moran said. “It is unrealistic to expect our producers to maintain the same standards as that of someone whose sole job responsibility is the transportation of goods throughout Kansas and America.” 

Kansas Farm Bureau farmer/rancher voting delegates at the American Farm Bureau Federation convention in New Orleans last month succeeded in moving a nationwide trucking regulation review to the top of the AFBF issues priority list.