Piecing Together The Possibilites
Global markets are an ever changing puzzle, and its the job of the U.S. Grains Council to fit the pieces together, build partnerships and take advantage of the possibilities. Opportunities in developing markets are significant. After all, nearly 95 percent of the world’s consumers live outside the United States.
With the most modern, innovative and productive agricultural system the world has ever seen, the United States enjoys a significant advantage in agricultural trade. In fact, agriculture is a U.S. trade champion, produced a record $141 billion in fiscal year 2013.
The Council worked tirelessly supported global buyers when U.S. stocks were tight due to last year’s drought. As China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other buyers returned to sourcing U.S. grains, it was rewarding to see efforts designed to maintain relationships pay dividends so quickly.
The Council welcomes you to explore its 2013 Year In Review materials available on this site, including our market profiles, highlights of our work in about 20 countries and video updates on our key successes. Please also download the PDF version of our report and keep it handy for reference in the coming year.
We sincerely appreciate the support of our members and the coarse grains industry and look forward to more successes in the coming year!
Member Letter
Dear U.S. Grains Council members:
For more than 55 years, the Council has worked to develop markets for U.S. corn, sorghum, barley and related products including ethanol and distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS). We operate programs in more than 50 countries with the support of farmer and agribusiness members as well as funds from the Market Access Program (MAP) and the Foreign Market Development (FMD) program in the 2014 Farm Bill.
A study released in November 2016 looked at the MAP and FMD programs’ impact over the past four decades, showing they contributed an average annual increase of $8.2 billion to farm export revenue – for a total of more than $309 billion. This gain equates to an impressive return on investment of 28 to 1.
Despite these large returns on our efforts, our work is never done. Grain exports are a bright spot in the current farm economy and can grow even further through outreach to the 95 percent of the world’s consumers who live outside U.S. borders. We serve as the bridge that allows our stakeholders to be effective global business leaders.
In the last year, we have focused on finding buyers for a very large corn crop through an intense marketing push while continuing our long-term demand building programs. As a result, we ramped up work in Mexico, Latin America and Southeast Asia while also pursuing new demand in up-and-coming markets like Tanzania, Cuba, Algeria and Malaysia and maintaining solid relationships in Canada, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.
Importantly, we also expanded our ethanol export promotion program dramatically in cooperation with Growth Energy, the Renewable Fuels Association and USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service; worked hard to help our industry address investigations brought against U.S. DDGS by China; and pushed to open new markets like South Africa despite existing non-tariff barriers.
Meanwhile, we continued helping the U.S. sorghum industry diversify its slate of buyers, including into the European Union and Peru, and worked with the U.S. barley industry to find new opportunities in Latin American craft brewing and Asian food applications.
Finding new opportunities around the world for our grain is the passion of both our members and our staff, who helped pick this year’s theme of Expanding Trade, Expanding Opportunities. We hope you enjoy this review of 2016 as we charge ahead in the new year. As always, we value your support in these endeavors.
Sincerely,
Chip Councell
Chairman
Tom Sleight
President and CEO
Front row, from left: President and CEO Thomas Sleight, U.S. Grains Council; Past Chairman Don Fast, Montana Wheat & Barley Committee; Chairman Julius Schaaf, Iowa Corn Promotion Board; Vice Chairman Ron Gray, Illinois Corn Marketing Board; Secretary/Treasurer Alan Tiemann, Nebraska Corn Board. Back row, from left: Agribusiness Sector Director Dave Lyons, Louis Dreyfus Commodities; At-Large Director Deb Keller, Iowa Corn Promotion Board; At-Large Director David Howell, Indiana Corn Marketing Council; Barley Sector Director Mark Seastrand, North Dakota Barley Council; Past State Checkoff Sector Director Kim Falcon, Montana Wheat & Barley Committee; Corn Sector Director Chip Councell, Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board; At-Large Director Charles Ring, Texas Corn Producers Board; At-Large Director James Tobin, Monsanto. Not Pictured: Sorghum Sector Director Bill Kubecka, United Sorghum Checkoff Program.