Canada's two main railway have exceeded their western grain revenue entitlements for the past crop year.

According to the Canadian Transportation Agency, Canadian National Rail's revenue came in almost seven million dollars above its entitlement, while Canadian Pacific Rail exceeded the limit by just over two million.

C-n and c-p have 30 days to pay this amount to the Western Grains Research Foundation, in addition to a five per cent penalty.

Research foundation chair, David Sefton says these numbers are significant, but they don't count on this funding every year.

"Funding that we receive gets invested and then the revenue from that investment is utilized for agriculture research. So we never look forward to it. We always hope they are going to stay under the revenue cap but they seem to exceed it on a regular basis."

In addition, Sefton adds that the foundation receiving this money is not good news for farmers.

"We always hope that the railways stay under the revenue cap. We never want to see these dollars coming to Western Grains Research foundation because that means that the farmers of western Canada have been overcharged for their rail transportation and as farmers that’s not a good thing.”

Sefton says the money will help fund work like planting breeding, end-use projects, and agronomic research.