By: Cary Sifferath, U.S. Grains Council Regional Director of the Middle East and Africa

The Moroccan poultry sector is coming of age and entering a dynamic new growth period that should lead to greater profitability, increased production efficiencies and a tremendous growth opportunity for U.S. exports of corn and its co-products to the country. This week, the U.S. Grains Council (USGC) in cooperation with CasaGrains, a major importer of corn and distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) in Morocco, escorted a Moroccan team to see firsthand U.S. corn and DDGS production, quality and the proper use of these products in the U.S. layer rations.

This marks the third year that the Council has worked with CasaGrains to bring a team representing downstream Moroccan customers and layer operations to the United States. This year’s 13-person group began its tour in Iowa, where the participants visited an ethanol plant, Iowa State University’s Egg Industry Center, a U.S. corn producer and sectors of the U.S. layer industry. 

Since most Moroccan layer farms are large operations, they buy feed ingredients such as corn and DDGS from CasaGrains to incorporate in their layer rations. Due to limited knowledge about DDGS among Moroccan nutritionists and feed salesmen, this valuable product is not utilized to its fullest potential in the Moroccan layer industry.

Through meetings with U.S. nutritionists and by seeing firsthand how the U.S. layer industry incorporates DDGS into feed rations, this team has the potential to help increase U.S. DDGS utilization in the Moroccan layer industry.

The team will finish in New Orleans where the group will learn more about shipping logistics.

The Council will continue to educate the Moroccan poultry sector about the benefits of using DDGS in their feed rations to help expand this country’s demand for the ethanol co-product.