Korea Corn Processing Association Purchases Corn Following 2015 Buyers Team

The U.S. Grains Council (USGC) invested $50,000 of Market Access Program (MAP) funds in a harvest-time trade team of Korean food and industrial corn buyers to educate them on the U.S. grain handling system and demonstrate to them the high quality of the 2015 U.S. corn crop. Following this outreach, the buyers purchased $22.4 million worth of U.S. corn, for a return on investment (ROA) of $448 for every $1 of MAP funds invested.

Members of the trade team of Korean corn buyers traveled to Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Iowa from Oct. 22-30, 2015, as part of a learning journey to the United States to get in-depth information about the U.S. grain supply chain from production to market.

The itinerary included stops at corn farms, country elevators, river terminal elevators, export terminal facilities, grain trading houses, ethanol plants, a biotechnology company and more.

Team members had opportunities to increase their knowledge of the U.S. grain export supply chain, with topics including production, identity preserved (IP) grain handling, transportation, marketing and quality control systems. In addition the team received the most up-to-date information on the 2015 U.S. corn crop situation and 2015/2016 U.S. and world corn outlook.

The 2015 MAP-funded program helped confirm to the team members the high quality of the 2015 crop corn. This was critical because before their visits, these buyers did not want to buy U.S. origin corn because they had previously found U.S. corn to have a higher BCFM (broken corn and foreign material) rate.

Shortly after this trip, the Korea Corn Processing Association (KCPIA) purchased 115,000 metric tons (4.5 million bushels) of U.S. corn valued at $22.4 million. The personal experience seeing high-quality U.S. corn was instrumental in these purchases of U.S. origin despite South American origin proposed at $3-4 per ton lower.