From Fields to Markets

Wheat harvest is a very important and exciting time for wheat farmers across America. It is at this time that the wheat is combined (harvested) and taken to the grain elevator. There are many transportation steps to get the wheat from the field to your plate as a slice of bread.

When the farmer cuts or harvests the wheat crop in the field, his or her combine dumps the wheat onto a truck that is also in the wheat field or close by. The truck then takes the wheat to a local grain elevator. Here, the truck driver "dumps" (unloads) the wheat. The farmer will sell the wheat to the elevator whenever he feels the price is right. After dumping the wheat, the truck driver goes back to the field for another load, and so forth until the field is completely harvested.

Now, the local grain elevator has the wheat that was harvested in the field. The elevator will ship the wheat to a terminal elevator. This will be done by either loading trucks with the wheat or loading the wheat into railroad cars. Either way, the wheat goes to a big terminal elevator where it is sold to food processors to make into bread, pasta, and other products. If the wheat is sold to a flour mill, then the wheat must once again be loaded onto a truck or into a railroad car and shipped to the flour mill.

If the terminal elevator sells the wheat across the sea, then the wheat must be loaded onto a truck or rail car and taken to the coast. At a port, it will be put onto a big boat to be shipped across the seas. Once it gets to the other port, it will be shipped by trucks or rail cars to its final processing place.

As you can see, it takes many steps to get the wheat from the field to the plates of people around the world. This is how wheat, the super seed, gets transported to feed the world.