MOOSE JAW, Sask. – With 153 countries in the World Trade Organization and hundreds of other trade agreements between countries, trade disruptions are inevitable, said an American agricultural economist.Flynn Adcock, assistant director at the Centre for North American Studies at Texas A & M University, said the increasing number of agreements will lead to more bottlenecks.Traditional constrictions include transportation and infrastructure issues such as the shortage of containers two years ago that caused disruption for pulse shippers.Port congestion is another example.“You need transportation or it doesn’t matter how many agreements you have,” Adcock said.Evolving and adequate infrastructure is also required.“Trade grows,” he said.At the southern U.S. border between Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, drayage is a local practice that causes trade to slow, even though this is the main crossing for long haul freight.Trucks at Laredo unload on to drayage trucks, which haul the goods to the other side of the border and transfer them to the next truck.Events are another bottleneck.Natural disasters and disease outbreaks often cause problems, and not just in the short term. Adcock noted that a 1996 cyclospora outbreak in raspberries from Guatemala is causing disruption.The problem was amplified because the raspberries were largely used in school lunch programs. Other sources quickly moved in to the fill the void.“They are just now regaining some of their market,” he said.Another bottleneck is policy related.“As border measures are reduced and eliminated, import competition intensifies,” Adcock said.Domestic producers want protection and politicians can be swayed to provide it.
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