Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Trucking



(click on image to enlarge)

There is a great deal of talk about the wonderful opportunities for the U.S. in dairy trade. Who knows how much will filter to the farm gate?

However, all of this is not as simple as it seems. Fuel costs are rising and one might think since the fuel is denominated in dollars the costs would be higher getting dairy out of the U.S. Well, it seems, having a back haul of some sort for all those containers is a deal sweetener.

But wait, most of the cheese is coming from the upper Midwest, where there are no refrigerated containers. Now there has to be a haul to a port via truck, where the cargo is then loaded to a container.

Needless to say, no one can look at any one set of numbers and grasp the whole financial impact. Every deal is unique.

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