Northwestern transporting corridor: logistic alternative for agricultural producers of center and north region of the Mato Grosso State

Abstract

The logistic applied to the agribusiness sector is today the main way for reduction of costs in commercialization of the Brazilian agro-industrial production. This concern is evident when we compare the logistic costs of Brazil with the logistic costs of U.S.A, our main global competitor in this segment. About soy, the main product in the guideline of exportations of the sector, Brazil presents a cost of U$ 97 for ton, much more than the U$ 26 for ton spent by the North Americans. To create logistic alternatives for the sector means to provides profits right to yield of the producers, mainly of the regions Center-West and North of Brazil. Facing this scene, this paper has as goal to analyze the economic viability of the Northwestern transporting corridor, dedicated logistic infrastructure to the process of transporting the agro-industrial production in the regions Center and North of the Mato Grosso State. The corridor infrastructure is composed for the set of federal and state highways and by the waterways linking the river Wood to the river Amazonas. The obtained data have been quantitatively analyzed, through the evaluation of the logistic costs generated by the use of this corridor comparing with the process of transporting by other logistic options, among them, the South corridor, which has the Paranaguá (PR) port as a way out door to the production for external market. The obtained results point to a significant costs reduction, from R$ 175 million by year, with the reduction of 22,13% of these costs. These values have as its base the exported volumes through the Northwestern corridor in 2005.