Argentina truck driver strike slashes truck arrivals at key ports

Ongoing lorry drivers’ strike action causes big impact at Argentine grain ports: sources

A strike action being carried out by a group of lorry owners and drivers is impacting the number of lorries arriving at Argentina’s main grain ports, industry sources have told Agricensus.

The indefinite strike action, which includes intermittent road blockades at some routes across the country, started on January 15.

The protest is being carried out by members of the Transportistas Unidos de la Argentina (TUDA) group, which comprises around 2,000 independent truck owners and drivers and is the latest in a series of strikes that have disrupted operations across the sector.

“The strike action is currently affecting all grain ports, including the terminals in Necochea and Bahia Blanca, in Buenos Aires province. The Transport and Security ministries are intervening in this conflict,” one source said.

Another industry source said that only 10% of the usual flow of lorries are transporting grain to local ports.

“Today, a total of 300 lorries arrived to grain ports, which compares to a usual daily flow of 3,000 lorries,” the source said.

Freight transport businessmen grouped in regional organizations partially blocked the Buenos Aires-Rosario highway as well as routes 18, A-012 and 19, in the south of the province of Santa Fe, to claim rate increases due to rising costs.

They also blocked the access to the underwater tunnel, which connects the cities of Santa Fe and Paraná, in Entre Ríos.

TUDA members are also demanding infrastructure improvements at national roads as well as a increased security for lorry drivers.

What to read next
China has announced additional tariffs of up to 15% on imports of US goods from March 10, with the new measures covering largely agricultural products, alongside restricted exports to 15 US companies, according to a notice posted by the country’s Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday, March 4. Imports of agricultural goods […]
The European Union’s weekly wheat exports amounted to 243,324 tonnes in the week to Sunday, February 16, according to initial data from the European Commission. Total wheat exports from the EU for the 2024/25 marketing year stood at 13.34 million tonnes, down by 36% compared with the same period in the previous marketing year, when […]
US corn sales for the 2024-25 season were reported at 1.65 million tonnes in the week to February 6, up by 12% from the previous week and by 20% from the prior four-week average, landing within the USDA’s expected range of 800,000-1.7 million tonnes, USDA data showed on Thursday, February 13. Much of the increase […]
Brazilian corn exports amounted to 3.59 million tonnes in January, down by 26.3% from the same month last year. Meanwhile, soybean shipments fell by 62.4% to 1.07 million tonnes, according to customs weekly data on Monday, February 10. In January last year, Brazil exported 4.87 million tonnes of corn and 2.85 million tonnes of soybeans. […]
Investors in the US corn and soybean markets trimmed shorts while amassing longs in the week to Tuesday January 14, pushing the corn net long to the highest-level since May 2022 and moving soybeans from a net short to a net long for the first time in more than a year, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) showed late on Friday January 17.
The recently concluded EU-Mercosur free-trade agreement, after 25 years of negotiation, is expected to have limited immediate impact on South American agricultural exports to Europe.