For Gustavo Gómez, director of the guild, the initiative has been working with the objective of making viable the fluvial transport of grain, for which it will be necessary to enable and consolidate Barrancabermeja as a coffee port in the interior of the country.
“In this way, the dispatches would not have to be sent from the producing areas to the ports in the Caribbean, but would be taken to the city of Santander (Barrancabermeja), located on the banks of the Magdalena River, and from there make the final export to the States market United and northern Europe, ”said the union leader.
He also mentioned that with the implementation of these types of strategies, significant savings in aspects of land costs will be achieved, since the intention is for long journeys to be made with maritime transport.
The manager of the National Federation of Coffee Growers, Roberto Vélez, highlighted the idea of exporters and recalled that the port issue is complicated when there are large volumes to dispatch.
“We must not forget that foreign sales will add up to 13 million bags of coffee and that is an important amount to take it out through the ports. We are involved and accompanying this idea, ”said Vélez.
From the presidency of the National Association of Foreign Trade (Analdex), Javier Díaz Molina, indicated that before the end of this year a pilot test will be carried out, to analyze the benefits of the initiative, which is expected to reduce by 15% the costs of transporting export coffee versus the value of land freight.
A key aspect in the success of this transport model is that there is a clearing load in the seaports, that is, after bringing coffee from the center of the country to the Caribbean, the vessels find goods and products to transfer them to Barrancabermeja and from there to cities like Bogotá and Medellín.
Multimodalism
With the adoption of this model, the export sector tries to promote different alternatives. Last year, for example, the transport of coffee by railroad between La Dorada (Caldas) and Santa Marta (Magdalena) was promoted, as another option to consolidate multimodalism and more efficiently transfer the grain from different coffee areas to external markets.
On the other hand, it is seeking to improve and optimize land routes, make shorter routes increasing frequencies and making it more profitable for the land transporter.
