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Abstract
Excerpts: A very substantial part of the winter and spring supply of fruits and vegetables for the northeastern United States originates in Florida. Normally this is transported by rail, truck, and boat. Before the war affected transportation, about 3 days were required to transport fruits and vegetables by refrigerator car or truck from Miami to New York City. If, in the future, air transportation is used, only about 8 hours would be needed for this transport. The commodities could be harvested in the morning, precooled and packed in the afternoon, transported to New York City overnight, and sold in retail stores the next day—only 24 hours after harvesting. Important factors in the successful movement of agricultural perishables by air freight are the supply of products, their areas of production, and their seasonality of production. Other factors, such as relative net costs of air shipment and competing transportation, the price of the commodity relative to its weight and volume, and the extent of the increase in the demand for the products that will be caused by air transportation, also are important in determining the quantity of agricultural commodities which may move as air cargo.