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The new U.S. Rural Infrastructure Opportunity Fund is designed to connect rural projects in need of funding with interested investors and lenders.

“Rural infrastructure projects have built-in advantages that should be attractive to financiers. For starters, investment dollars go farther,” McGraw Hill Financial CEO Douglas L. Peterson wrote in an opinion piece for CNBC this week.

Rail congestion and large bounties of crops have some worried about grain storage space as South Dakota’s harvest gets underway.

Farmers adapt to life amid oil boom, big harvests

Adequate capacity during demand surges is key to export efficiencies

There’s little room to make up for any new weather disruptions, with U.S. economic growth keeping tracks packed with consumer goods, building materials, oil, and grain.

U.S. buyers are sourcing grain from other suppliers as Canadian companies are not confident they will get enough rail cars to deliver on southern rail corridors.

BNSF, which has come under scrutiny this year from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board over late grain deliveries, has told some oil shippers its network can’t accommodate more tank cars.

Minnesota officials and propane suppliers say they’re better prepared to avoid repeating the shortages that hit much of the Midwest last winter.

Gov. Mark Dayton is urging the federal government to step in on railroad delays hitting Minnesota grain farmers.