“Anything we can do to make things transparent makes customers happy and builds confidence,” noted Arvid Hawk, “and the new USGC Corn Harvest Quality Report was certainly welcomed by buyers. We’re establishing a benchmark that can only help to build confidence in the future.”

An internationally recognized expert on grain quality and testing, Hawk is president of Global Agricultural Consulting LLC. He visited Tokyo, Seoul, Guangzhou and Taipei earlier this month as

part of a U.S. Grains Council team presenting the first in what will become an annual series of USGC Corn Harvest Quality Reports.

Hawk’s assessment was echoed by Council staff in attendance, manager of international operations, who was in Egypt and Saudi Arabia last week to present the report to interested buyers, traders and end-users. “U.S. grain faces growing competition in North African and Middle Eastern markets, especially from the Black Sea region,” Roepke said. “Ukraine is gearing up to increase exports and has an obvious transportation advantage in the region. But the United States enjoys an unmatched reputation for long-term reliability, and the report plays to that strength.”

The emergence of Argentina, Brazil and the Ukraine as major corn exporters has intensified competition around the world. The USGC Corn Harvest Quality Report, developed and funded by the U.S. Grains Council, is designed to provide an objective benchmark of key quality parameters based on a transparent, fully disclosed methodology. The initial report is available here on the Council’s website.

The Council’s international staff is in the process of briefing customers one-on-on and other interested parties across East and Southeast Asia, Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East. The USGC Corn Harvest Quality Report will be followed by an Export Quality Report, to be released next month that will provide follow-up data for corn quality as it leaves U.S. ports.

The United States is a trusted partner and the Council’s commitment with these reports is to give customers reliable information with which to make better informed decisions. In the long run, that will translate into U.S. sales.”