By Shannon Schaffer, U.S. Grains Council Director of Membership
The U.S. Grains Council’s 7th International Marketing Conference and 50th Annual Membership Meeting is just more than a week away and the excitement is building. There will be almost 300 individuals, including attendees, Council staff, speakers and guests, flying into Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, for this meeting. This will make it one of the largest regular Council meetings ever! The theme for the meeting is “50 Years of Leadership: Acting on Opportunities.� This captures our desire to celebrate the Council’s history, while looking forward and working on the future.
Future planning will be a key thrust of the meeting. The work Council members will be doing in Mexico is critical to the continued success of the Council. This meeting is no vacation! It brings our key international staff together with our membership to work on the Unified Export Strategy, or UES, which will serve as the blueprint for the Council’s programming in the future. The input from the Council membership, provided through the Advisory Team (A-Team) meetings, is invaluable in assuring that our programming truly meets the industry needs. The Council is an organization driven and run by its membership. In addition to the UES, members attending the meeting have been asked to provide input about issues that may affect their business and U.S. agricultural trade in general over the next two or three years.
This initial discussion will be focused on three topics: Global competition in export markets for coarse grains and products; product differentiation to add value and capture markets; and innovative use of technology in market development efforts. Each A-Team will have time set aside in their agenda to discuss these topics. Beyond planning the future of the Council, attendees will also hear from internationally recognized speakers to help put the issues of the day in context for the work they are doing. Carole Brookins, managing partner of Public Capitol Advisors LLC, and former U.S. executive director of the World Bank, will discuss the policies and strategies necessary to address the mounting changes facing the world today – from climate change to financial changes.
Christopher Langholz, president of Cargill’s domestic trading arm, will be on hand to talk about the challenges facing increasing U.S. exports, from competition to transportation issues. Attendees will also hear from Pedro Gonzales Hernandez, an under secretary for agribusiness issues in the Mexican Department of Agriculture, about the future of U.S. trade with Mexico. The Council depends on involvement by its members to make its projects as effective as possible. Meetings like this one in Mexico and the July Board of Delegates Meeting in Boston are a key way for the Council to get the necessary input for Developing Markets, Enabling Trade and Imporving Lives.