A survey of 25,000 agriculture-transporting carriers is being planned to determine what security measures the companies have put in place since the terrorist attacks on the United States September 11, 2001, according to the American Trucking Associations (ATA).
The survey will be conducted by ATA's research arm, the American Transportation Research Institute. It is part of a partnership with ATA's Agricultural Transporters Conference and the Department of Agriculture (USDA).
After the survey is completed and analyzed, a guide for security management practices in agricultural commodity transportation will be made available by ATA, according to Charles "Shorty" Whittington, chairman of the agriculture conference and owner of Grammer Industries, Grammer IN.
As a part of the work, ATA and the USDA will modify an existing security management practices guide for agricultural transporters and a risk assessment tool already developed by ATA for the trucking industry to tailor the guide specifically for transporters of agricultural commodities.
For more information on the survey and the agriculture conference, go to the ATA Web site at truckline.com.