Farmers and grains exporters in the South American country, the top global supplier of soyoil and soymeal, say crumbling and inadequate transport infrastructure has failed to keep pace with soaring soy output and is fueling rising costs.
"The lack of efficient access routes increases transport costs, because the trucks get delayed and they break down," said Alfredo Sese, secretary of the transport committee at the grains exchange in Rosario.
"The farmer is the one who ends up paying the difference because he has to get his goods to port," he said.
Far more of Argentina's growing grains output is shifted to port by truck than in other leading producers such as Brazil and the United States, deepening the impact of inadequate highways.
Argentina's once-formidable rail network has fallen into disrepair although the government promised earlier this year to spend $10 billion on improvements -- a plan originally unveiled years ago.
China, one of the biggest buyers of Argentine soy, will finance most of the rail investment, which would allow farmers in far-flung areas to send their crops to port at lower costs.
Soaring soy production, which reached a record 52.7 million tonnes in the last harvest, has been accompanied by rapid industrial development in the area around Rosario.
Leading international exporters such as Louis Dreyfus, Cargill [CARG.UL] and Bunge have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to expand crushing capacity as harvests swell.
But transport infrastructure in and around the city has not received the same attention.
At the peak of the harvest, between 5,000 and 5,500 trucks enter the city's port terminals every day.
At the end of a line of trucks, lies Louis Dreyfus's plant in Timbues, some 50 km (30 miles) north of Rosario. It has capacity to process 8,000 tonnes of grains per day and store some 400,000 tonnes of produce.
The company, which has another even-bigger plant in Argentina, says insufficient transport networks are one of the biggest problems facing the sector.
"The area is still competitive but it has lost competitiveness, which we're a bit worried about," Luis Zubizarreta, institutional relations manager, told Reuters in a recent interview.
Seeking a solution to the problem, industry executives and government officials have drawn up a plan that involves improving road access to the city and the ports and also upgrading rail infrastructure.
However, the project has gotten bogged down due to its hefty price tag, and exporting companies are demanding quicker solutions, even if they only partially solve the problem.
"With a few projects in the areas of San Lorenzo (near Rosario) and in Timbues, the improvement would be exponential," Zubizarreta said.
He proposed a short extension to the Belgrano Cargas freight line to link the plants to the railway.
"What we need is for the trucks to arrive in an orderly fashion at the port, which doesn't require a great deal of investment," he said as dozens to trucks waited to unload their cargoes. (Reuters)
