Delays in the loading and unloading of significant volumes of grain directly impact the competitiveness of transportation and products.
The carriers of Uruguay they claim for the extra hours of work that add up due to the delays for the loading and unloading of products, mainly soybeans after a harvest that is expected to be around three million tons. The claim points out that workers endure long waits at collection sites – mills, plants and ports – due to lack of infrastructure and management problems that end up affecting the competitiveness of the products due to the increase in prices. logistics costs.
After a historic drought that undoubtedly affected the levels of soybean production, another of the country’s main export products, this year a rebound is expected with a harvest that is between 3.2 and 3.5 million tons. Added to this is also good performance of the corn, with 1.3 million tons.
Although the news in itself is positive, for all that it entails, it also has its downside: the exceptional load of seeds must be transported in trucks and, for various reasons, this causes distortions in the production chain. Particularly, delays that result in long hours of waiting for transporters at the production loading and unloading sites, due to the inability of the collection sites to process significant volumes of grain.
“They do not coordinate with the producers and assign more places to unload than they have,” explained the president of the Interguild of Professional Freight Transport (ITPC), Ignacio Asumendiabout.
A problem for competitiveness
Beyond the inconvenience and inconvenience related to significant delays, they also directly affect the competitiveness of the products – a topic much discussed in recent months in the country – while the waiting hours and the logistical delays impact the final cost of production.
However, Asumendi highlighted the negative impact that the situation has on transportation itself, making less efficient operations: he highlighted that at the beginning of the harvest they launch a reference rate so that the carriers can know what the ideal rate would be to be able to cover all the costs in relation to the transportation of the merchandise, but after the rate is given, this problem related to the performance of trucks, mainly in grain loading places.
“Many times the producer prefers that the seed be in the truck even if the collection plant does not unload it; But the one who ends up paying is the carrier,” he pointed out. The delay times of the drivers are assumed by the vehicle owners. “That takes away from the performance of the rates,” said the president of the ITPC, from where they assure that there are trips with more than 24 hours of waiting, which makes the wage of the driver is multiplied by two and a half times.
The problem is that the freight has a fixed price established by the number of kilometers that the truck has to travel between the loading and unloading places. “The carrier bills when he is rolling, not when he is stopped,” Asumendi stated.
In this framework, the union member explained that a internal mechanism to receive claims, complaints or notices from transporters and collection sites, to identify “bottlenecks” and look for alternatives for loading and unloading products.
Source: Ambito
