Trucks provide America’s agriculture producers with the best service for transporting time-sensitive products from supplier to farm and farm to market, said a study released recently by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), in coordination with the US Department of Transportation.
According to the USDA, many high-value agricultural products are perishable and time-sensitive, requiring the efficiency, special handling, or refrigerated services best provided by trucks.
“The USDA study provides the first holistic examination of agricultural transportation and highlights the essentiality of trucking to our modern agricultural production system,” said Russell Laird, executive director of the American Trucking Associations’ Agricultural & Food Transporters Conference.
The study, commissioned by Congress with the passage of the farm bill in 2008, said agriculture is the largest user of freight transportation in the United States, claiming 31% of all ton-miles transported in the nation in 2007. Truck transportation is essential to the movement of these goods, providing the primary transport mode for all agricultural commodities, including grain. Trucks provide a vital flexibility, said the study. “They are the most effective method of moving goods short distances and for assembling quantities of products at elevators and warehouses for transloading to other modes of transportation,” said the study.
USDA also found that regulatory actions play an important role in agricultural transportation. For example, Congress has protected critical planting and harvesting activities subject to volatile weather and market conditions by mandating flexibility for movements of agricultural commodities or farm supplies by truck during those times.
Proper funding for the nation’s infrastructure is also important for the safe and efficient movement of agricultural goods. “America’s roads are vital to truck transportation,” said USDA. However, federal data in 2004 reported that “over half of federal-aid highways are in less-than-good condition and more than one quarter of the nation’s bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete.” Congress must work toward a long-term highway reauthorization bill to address these infrastructure needs.
While other transportation modes like ocean shipping and railroad also move agricultural goods throughout the supply chain, they are exempt from antitrust rules, which have the potential to decrease competition, reduce service, and raise rates, said the USDA study. The competitive nature of the trucking sector, however, means that trucking remains an attractive shipping option, even during times of rapidly increasing fuel costs.
Currently, more than 80% of cities and communities are served exclusively by trucks, especially the rural areas where rails and waterways do not reach.
To access the Study of Rural Transportation Issues, visit the website at www.ams.usda.gov/RuralTransportationStudy.