U.S. Grains Council (USGC) staff from across the world will join USGC members, delegates and guests in Houston, Texas, next week for the Council’s 15th International Marketing Conference and 58th Annual Membership Meeting.

The meeting, scheduled for Feb. 12-14, will allow USGC delegates, members and advisory teams (A-Teams) to engage directly on the most critical issues related to international trade of U.S. corn, sorghum and barley as well as ethanol and distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS).

Ted McKinney, Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), will address the group during general session on Monday. He will be joined by other prestigious speakers including Mark Slupek, Deputy Administrator of the Office of Trade Programs at the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, Deen Kaplan, partner in leading international trade firm Hogan Lovells, and Dr. Harry Kaiser, economist at Cornell University.

A-Teams will also conduct their yearly in-depth sessions to help set USGC global strategy and hear from the Council’s global staff members who work to promote grain and grain products.

More information about the meeting is available on the USGC website at www.grains.org/Houston. Specific questions can be directed to Rebecca Kane, USGC’s meetings manager, at rkane@grains.org.