When discussing emissions from food transportation, the key factor is not so much the distance as the mode of transport. Air freight generates the highest CO₂ emissions, followed by road transport, while maritime shipping has the lowest climate impact, EastFruit notes. A trend toward reducing environmental pressure has emerged over the past decade, as market participants involved in international fruit and vegetable shipments to Uzbekistan increasingly substituted road transport with rail and maritime logistics.
Although road transport continued to dominate Uzbekistan’s fruit and vegetable trade structure throughout the analyzed period, its share has been declining. While road transport accounted for 84.7% of shipments in 2017, by 2023 its share had decreased to 80.8%. The share of the most emission‑intensive transport mode — air freight — remained unchanged at 0.2%, mainly used for delivering premium fresh products to developed markets in the Middle East, Europe, Asia, and the United States.
By 2023, the share of rail transport increased slightly, reaching 13.6% of Uzbekistan’s external fruit and vegetable trade. The largest growth was observed in maritime (water) transport — from 2.2% in 2017 to 5.4% in 2023. This increase is linked to expanding agreements on the use of ports in other countries, as Uzbekistan has no seaports or direct access to the sea. Consequently, maritime transport was utilized within multimodal logistics chains, mainly in combination with road transport.
Also read: How to Cut Transport Emissions by 95% in Fresh Produce Logistics?
It is also worth noting that additional contributions to the carbon footprint of fruit and vegetable transportation to Uzbekistan arise from delays of refrigerated trucks at border crossings and insufficient optimization of logistics routes.
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