4-Tier Distribution System Emerges Page 3 of 8

 

1. Trucking Systems

Entrepreneurs quickly began to establish privately-operated trucking companies (mostly consisting of one truck) to bridge the link between local farmers and urban consumers:

bluetru.jpg (7537 bytes) Trucking Services
Some truckers simply provide transportation services, enabling farmers without fully licensed trucks to get their produce into the "free market" centers, where the farmers or their city agents sell the produce at "free markets".

 

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Rentals
Others trucking companies rent their trucks to wholesalers, who have permanent stalls at wholesale markets in the major cities (but no trucks). The wholesalers contract directly with farmers to buy their produce and rent trucks from a trucking company.

 

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Trucker-broker's truck
at a wholesale market.

Trucker-Brokers
More enterprising truckers began offering brokering services to farmers, buying their produce by the truckload and reselling at the "free markets" or wholesale markets.

Trucker-brokers are the main way farm produce gets to the market today, filling a major gap in the government's notoriously inept distribution system.  They typically travel several days from the farm to markets in major cities.

They negotiate prices directly with farmers, pay cash on the spot and bear the risk of reselling either at the "free market" centers or at the wholesale markets.There are no government guidelines or controls on the prices contracted between the farmers and the trucker-brokers, nor are there any controls over prices these brokers charge at the wholesale markets or at the "free markets".

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Trucker-brokers buy in large quantities.

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No trucks are refrigerated.  Some use
ice, but the spoilage rate is still very high.

 

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