By Craig Floss, Iowa Corn Promotion Board Chief Executive Officer
Today, Iowa’s corn growers feed not only North America, but also significant parts of the globe. The increase in international trade can be traced directly back to the humanitarian shipment of hogs and corn from Iowa to Japan in 1959.
The famous “Hog Lift� event brought Iowa swine breeding technology and grain hungry animals to a typhoon stricken Japan, but it also contributed to a shortage of feed grains on the island. With U.S. grain surpluses at the time and a ready customer in Japan, Iowa and other U.S. grain producers were able to easily fill a growing need for feed grains. The “Hog-Lift,� including 60,000 bushels of number-one grade corn to Japan, was merely a jump-start.
Today, the partnership continues to facilitate billions of dollars in U.S. agricultural exports and create millions of jobs. Since the “Hog Lift,� there have been businesses that grew from the relationship. The three top meat companies in Japan have operations on the ground in Iowa and Iowa is the number one exporter of meat to Japan, sending a record $530 million in pork last year and $30 million in beef each year.
In 1960, the first of its kind sister-state relationship was established between Iowa and the Yamanashi prefecture. Over the years, the relationship has involved many exchanges from farmers to Iowa governors. During the Great Flood of 1993, $300,000 in flood aid relief was given to Iowa from Yamanashi.
Yamanashi symbolizes the success of the United States’ worldwide cooperator program, and Iowa’s special agricultural relationship with Japan. Within this global relationship, Japan stands out as the most successful country for the market development of not only Iowa, but U.S. food and agricultural products.
The International Trade office of the Iowa Department of Economic Development (IDED), in partnership with the Iowa Corn Promotion Board, Iowa Pork Producers Association, the Iowa Soybean Association, the Iowa Beef Industry Council, Iowa Farm Bureau, and the Iowa Sister States, will join with the U.S. Grains Council and the U.S. Foreign Agricultural Service in Japan, to commemorate the “Hog Lift,� the 50th anniversary of the Iowa-Yamanashi sister-state relationship.