Wheat Grain Losses in Highway Transportation

Road transport is highlighted by its efficiency providing door-to-door services. It can be considered that 62.70% of the entire Brazilian cargo is handled by land transportation. In this context the transportation of wheat grains is very important. Wheat is an important cereal crop in Brazil and one of the main sources of carbohydrates for baking. The country produced approximately 5.42 million tons of wheat grains in the 2018 harvest. The objective of this study is to establish a percentage loss index, as well as to assess these quantitative losses during the transportation of grains of wheat in bulk. The work was developed through a partnership between the National Supply Company and the Nucleus of Storage Technology at the Federal University of Mato Grosso. It was established the evaluation of losses related to the transportation of grain wheat in bulk in the main waterways, and the research was carried out in BR-277/376 in the State of Paraná. After the choice of the highways evaluated, we performed research on the data of documents of the transport of wheat in bulk. The obtained data, through the documents, provided weight of origin, weight of destination, place of origin and place of destination, in this way, by difference was obtained the quantity of grains lost in the transport and the mileage traveled in each route. By means of these data it was possible to obtain three indices of losses, one in Kg/Km (kilogram per kilometer wheeled), another one in Kg / t (kilograms per tons transported), and also determined an index of loss in percentage of grains transported. With the indication of the indices it was possible to evaluate the losses. The Bitrem truck (7 axles) was used as the basis for calculating the losses, since during the interviews this was the type that had the most occurrences in BRs evaluated, with 39%. Based on the questionnaire, the load weight of 38,000 kg was adopted. For the study of losses of wheat grains in road transport, 10,279 data were analyzed for routs, 1,053,851 km, with an average of 102.52 km round trip. The amount of wheat grain transported was 222,494,228 kg. The total losses were 505,736 kg, averaging 49.20 kg of loss per trip. The loss per km was on average 0.479 kg. The percentage loss index for wheat (0.1708%) was determined. This percentage is lower than the adopted one that is of 0.25%, nevertheless, represent considerable losses for the economy. Based on the data obtained in the present study, it can be stated that it is possible to adopt, by the carriers, percentage loss indexes lower than 0.25% in the contracts. It is recommended to adopt the percentages of grain loss in road transport of 0.17% for wheat.