The Iowa Corn Promotion Board (ICPB) recently pledged its support of Export Exchange 2010 to be held Oct. 6-8, 2010, in Chicago, Ill. The event—co-sponsored by the U.S. Grains Council (USGC) and the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA)—is an international trade conference focused around the export of U.S. distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and coarse grains.

When most people think of whole grain, multi-grain or gluten-free baked products, sorghum is not the first ingredient that comes to mind. But all that may change with ADM’s introduction of sorghum flour for gluten-free and multi-grains applications. The product, which is made in the form of both white and whole grain white sorghum flour, made its debut at this year’s Institute of Food Technologists Expo in Chicago where attendees learned that sorghum flour can be used to make anything from gluten-free cookies to gluten-free pancakes, cakes and more.

A team of Chinese grain importers recently completed a 10 day U.S. tour to learn more about U.S. agricultural operations and shore up relationships with U.S. grain suppliers. Team members represented interests from Beijing and Shandong Province in the north, the central provinces of Hubei, Fujian and Shanghai, and the southern provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi. The team travelled through Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and California.

Seven recent purchases of U.S. corn by Tunisia have driven the U.S. market share in the country up from 0 to 39 percent, according to the U.S. Grains Council. The purchases, which have taken place within the last three months, total 143,500 metric tons (5.6 million bushels) to date.

According to Cary Sifferath, USGC senior director in the Mediterranean and Africa, the purchases are the result of two things working in favor of the United States: the on-going communication between the Council’s staff in Tunis and major Tunisian feed grain importers; and more expensive corn from other sources.

While U.S. corn can already be found in Taiwan in the form of plastic cups, containers and similar products, it now has the opportunity to spread to other parts of Asia as the demand for polylactic acid (PLA) products grows. Recently, China’s Xiamen Wei Meng Environmental Materials Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of Taiwan’s Wei Mon Industry Co. Ltd., announced the production and marketing of PLA products.

The chairman and chief consultant of Shanghai JC Intelligence Co. Ltd. (JCI) said his organization anticipates that China will import some 1.7 million tons of corn this year, 5.8 million tons next year and as much as 15 million tons in 2014-2015.

Speaking through a translator, JCI’s Hanver Li told those at the U.S. Grains Council’s 50th Annual Board of Delegates Meeting that demand for corn in China is simply outstripping the country’s production trend.