Owners of trucks protesting for higher freight rates have slowed transport of grains in one of the world’s top producers, cutting into stocks, Andres Alcarez, spokesman for export company chamber CIARA-CEC, told Reuters.
“The stored stock of grains from the plants or the ports to embark or to process is going extinct,” Alcarez said, noting that the companies have grain supplies to last for one or two days should shipments halt completely.
In the Rosario port complex, responsible for exporting 80% of agricultural products, 56% fewer trucks arrived on Feb. 5 than had a week earlier, according to the Rosario Grains exchange.
Argentina is the world’s top exporter of soy meal and soy oil, the No. 3 corn producer and a main provider of wheat.
The grain transporters protest coincides with a strike that began on Jan. 31 by workers at three Cargill soy processing plants and ports in Argentina. The workers are protesting layoffs at Cargill’s two facilities in Rosario and one in Bahia Blanca.
