Canadian farm groups are asking producers to lobby federal ministers and MPs to urge them to super-size a government proposal for what’s called ‘extended interswitching.’

The measure essentially gives grain shippers a choice in which railway they deal with, as long as the competitor’s line is no more than 160 kilometres away.

It means a railway would have to pick up the rail cars loaded by a shipper and ‘hand off’ the cars to the other railway.

The Alberta Wheat Commission, along with Alberta Barley and Alberta Pulse Growers, has joined a dozen other commodity groups and industry organizations in the lobbying campaign.

They want the budget pledge of an 18-month trial extended to five years, and the maximum distance for interswitching upped to 500 km, so it applies to the Peace region and the Carrot River growing region of northeastern Saskatchewan.