Methodology

II. Methodology

This study had three separate components: industry issues, industry characteristics, and industry perceptions.

Issues

To determine the important issues in produce trucking, data and opinions were obtained by telephone and by personal interviews with industry leaders. Trade organizations’ web sites were visited on the Internet, industry trade publications were reviewed, and an extensive search was made on the World Wide Web. U.S. Department of Agriculture officials were also interviewed.

Trucking Characteristics

The annual production tonnages of 20 fruits and 23 vegetables were obtained from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. Annual production tonnages of these 43 products were obtained for 1994, 1995, and 1996. An annual average tonnage was calculated for each crop for these three years.

The usual harvest season for these produce items was also obtained from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The annual tonnages were evenly distributed over the months each crop was harvested, which was necessary to get an estimated monthly tonnage of produce shipped from the state.

From the annual average tonnage of these major fruits and vegetables, the quantities usually exported were subtracted to estimate total domestic shipments. The per capita consumption of the 32 million Californians was also deleted from the estimated annual tonnage. The remaining production was assumed to have left the state. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that 92 percent of fresh fruits and vegetables are shipped out of California via truck.3

Truck hauling costs were obtained from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Fruit and Vegetable Market News Service (AMS.) These data were generally available from 1986 to 1996.4 Per-mile costs to operate a truck were obtained from this same Market News source. Costs per mile were calculated for shipping a truckload of produce from California to five major U.S. markets: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, and New York.

For this study the production data were converted to a 40,000-pound (20-ton) load equivalent. Mileage distances used in the per mile cost calculations were obtained from the "GOUSHA Trucker’s Road Atlas, 1992."

Secondary data were also obtained from the California Trucking Association, the American Trucking Association, the California Highway Patrol, and a large number of organizations associated with transportation, which have "web-sites" on the Internet.

Perceptions

To determine the perceptions about the produce trucking industry, three questionnaires were designed: one for shippers, one for truckers, and one for receivers (See Appendix B).

To facilitate a wide distribution of the survey, the shipper questionnaire was sent out by the Western Growers Association to its membership. Fruit shippers were contacted directly, by telephone-fax or by mail. The receiver questionnaire was sent to major chain store buying offices located in California, as well as to members of the North American Perishable Agricultural Receivers, (NAPAR), an industry association.

The trucker-truck broker questionnaire was sent out by telephone-fax or by mail to members of the Agricultural Transporters Conference (ATA) and members of the Transportation Intermediaries Association, (TIA). Completed questionnaires were returned by 71 shippers, 18 receivers and 44 truckers.

{ CATI , also CAB , CFSNR , CIT , VERC }