By Cary Sifferath, U.S. Grains Council Senior Director in China

The U.S. Grains Council has been doing work in China since the mid-1980s and I’ve only been a part of that effort for the past two years. China is a very difficult and demanding market, predominately because China’s government polices are set to maintain self sufficiency in the major grains of corn, wheat and rice. This makes work as the USGC director in China challenging when you have to try and work against that type of government policy. 

Before I arrived in China, programs were already in place to ramp up and promote DDGS (distiller’s dried grains with soluble) as a product not subject to the same import restrictions as corn. We thought DDGS had the ability to compete against domestic feed ingredients, especially in the Coastal Region. That hard work has paid off with the rapid expansion of U.S. DDGS exports to China, making it the third largest market behind Mexico and Canada. This all happened in a period of six to eight months.

Even with me leaving, we have a very qualified staff at the Beijing office who will continue to work on the USGC programs. I have enjoyed my time here and the chance to work them. The China programs, especially in the swine and dairy sector, are some of the best programs I’ve seen as far as pure demand building market efforts. USGC/Beijing will continue to work to expand demand for U.S. grains and their co-products. We are hopeful to see China eventually become an importer of corn, making China one of the biggest potential feed grains market of the future.

Finding key feed manufacturers and trading companies who are potential importers and building face-to-face relationships with them contributes to the current and future success of U.S. exports to China. The Council works with these companies to show them how to use DDGS, show them the superior quality U.S. DDGS has over domestic DDGS as well as what it would take for them to buy the product. We then link these importers with USGC member suppliers. Through different workshops we’ve held in the past two years and work through trade teams, we are able to develop positive buyer and seller relationships. Those face-to-face introductions have been successful in leading to the increase of sales of U.S. products.

I’ve truly enjoyed working with the USGC Beijing staff. Whoever my replacement is should have easy adjustment to the job just based on the staff being able to keep the programs running. I’ve enjoyed my time as USGC director in China. Walking through numerous corn fields and different dairy and swine farms to monitor production, and attending meetings with new companies, introducing DDGS are all experiences I have enjoyed in my short time here. I look forward to the opportunities and challenges in the Mediterranean & Africa Region.