Abstract：

The ocean transportation of grain bulk carriers is advanced by developmentof ocean economic. With the development of coastal region, the cargotransportation will become more and more important. Especially resource such asgrain, oil and coal becomes more important than before.  

In this study, a model is built to estimate the number of grainbulk carriers needed for wheat after analyzing the relationships between Tonsand Ton-miles of Africa wheat transportation. We find that the agriculturalpolicies greatly affect the wheat transportation to Africa.Then, using two scenarios, we predict how many ships are necessaryfor the maritime transportation of wheat to Africain the future. We believethat this research is extremely usefulto maritime transportation of wheat to Africa. 

Keywords:Maritime transportation, coastalregion development, regression model, trade, bulk carriers

1. Introduction

Wheat is very important to people as a food. Especially in Africa, the present agricultural condition is dangerous.Starvation frequently happens in many countries. The cause of starvation isoften considered to be the explosive growth of the population in Africa. However, climatic aberration, civil war, thedepression of national economies, and the failure of economic policy in theworld economy system are also important factors. In other words, the cause iscomposed of various complex factors, such as natural, social, and politicalfactors.As aresult, food shortages are very serious for the African people.

  In addition, the distancebetween producers and consumers becomes longer than before in accordance withthe expansion of international food trade. As a result, distribution channelsare becoming complicated, and consumers do not know where food comes from andhow it is produced. Algela Paxton (Algela 1994) argues about the danger of thelong-distance transportation of food. 

However, little research has been done on the maritimetransportation of wheat in specific regions of the world. Xieand Kubo (Xie and Kubo 2007 a) discussed the maritime transportation system ofwheat, which includes the maritime tons, ton-miles, and value. Based onthis research, in this study, a model is built to estimate the number of grainbulk carriers needed for wheat after analyzing the relationships between Tonsand Ton-miles of Africa wheat transportation. We find that the agriculturalpolicies greatly affect the wheat transportation to Africa.Then, using two scenarios, we predict how many ships are necessaryfor the maritime transportation of wheat to Africain the future. We believethat this research is extremely usefulto maritime transportation of wheat to Africa.