The U.S. Grains Council (USGC) recently completed an overhaul of its website – www.grains.org – to improve user experience, provide new opportunities for resource sharing and offer better access to the Council’s toolbox of resources for trade advocacy.
The website is the hub for information about the Council’s global presence and outreach to promote the export of U.S. corn, barley, sorghum, ethanol, distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and other co-products. This work is supported by more than 130 members and the Market Access Program (MAP) and Foreign Market Development (FMD) program, included in the 2014 Farm Bill and managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA’s FAS).
The new version of the site includes an upgraded grains-in-all-forms portal, which converts volumes of exported U.S. corn, sorghum, barley, DDGS, corn gluten feed (CGF), corn gluten meal (CGM), ethanol and meat products into corn equivalents. The portal includes tabular and charting information as well as details about the top export customers for each of the individual commodities. The data included offers a different and more holistic view of the amount of feed grains produced by U.S. farmers and consumed by overseas customers in an easy-to-read format.
The website also features a new multimedia resources gallery, better organizing the visual and audio resources the Council continually develops for farmers, members and others to use in sharing the story of how important export demand is to farm profitability. This content visually complements market data that shows the success of U.S. exports.
The website also maintains the Council’s regular reports on organization news and success stories as well as the Market Perspectives publication and market reports on DDGS and ethanol. The annual corn quality report and an extensive listing of the Council’s members have been redesigned to be more visually-appealing and user-friendly.
“We are excited for this new website platform that will offer our members and overseas customers a better experience immediately while allowing us space to grow our content over time and enhance the library of information we can offer,” said Melissa Kessler, Council director of strategic relations. “We see this upgrade as part of an integrated approach to sharing details about our programming as well as about the importance of trade to U.S. agriculture’s success.”
Visit grains.org to check out the new website.
About The U.S. Grains Council
The U.S. Grains Council develops export markets for U.S. barley, corn, sorghum and related products including distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and ethanol. With full-time presence in 28 locations, the Council operates programs in more than 50 countries and the European Union. The Council believes exports are vital to global economic development and to U.S. agriculture’s profitability. Detailed information about the Council and its programs is online at www.grains.org.