U.S. corn exports have staged a dramatic comeback in South Korea, driven by the record 2013 U.S. corn crop. However, the U.S. drought of 2012 is still fresh in the minds of Korean buyers. Tight supplies and higher prices due to the drought slashed Korean corn imports from the United States drastically in the 2012/2013 marketing year to less than 460,000 metric tons (18.1 million bushels), down from more than 3.5 million tons (137.8 million bushels) in the 2011/2012 marketing year. For this reason, Korean buyers and end-users are eager for reassuring news of the 2014/2015 U.S. corn crop.

This week, the U.S. Grains Council escorted Iowa Corn Promotion Board Past Chairman Dick Gallagher, Iowa Corn Promotion Board Chairman Kevin Rempp, and The Scoular Company Export Commodity Manager Justin Cauley to Korea. At the 2014 U.S. Corn Crop and 2014/2015 U.S. World Corn Supply and Demand Outlook Conference, these three U.S. corn ambassadors presented a 2014/2015 U.S. corn crop progress report and briefed Korean buyers on how this will affect quality, availability and price in the coming year.

Iowa producers Gallagher and Rempp had good news to share with the customers, as they illustrated their report with recent photographs of their farms. Both planted corn in early May and had healthy crop to show.

“The U.S. corn crop is off to its third best start in the last 30 years,” Gallagher said. “However, it takes six months to grow a corn crop and actually have the corn in the bins. Mother Nature still rules.”

Even though the weather could still adversely affect the crop, Rempp feels U.S. farmers have the technology to mitigate most setbacks.

“Precision farming that most U.S. farmers use includes GPS, grid sampling and variable rate fertilizer which provides each hectare of land with its maximum productivity rate,”Rempp said. “Nationwide, the United States has the ability to produce a large corn supply and the capacity to continue to be a reliable supplier to meet Korea’s needs in 2014-2015.”

Cauley’s presentation highlighted the USDA’s projections for this year’s corn crop. Current 2014/2015 USDA projections call for 84.3 million acres harvested in the United States with an average yield of 165.3 bushels/acre. This would be a record yield and would provide Korean corn buyers with an excellent supply of high-quality U.S. corn.

The team will continue their presentations this week. Next stop: Tokyo, Japan, to continue to spread the message that the United States is the long-term, reliable supplier of high-quality corn.