This year has seen the U.S. Grains Council capitalize on lessons learned during the global pandemic that began in 2020. No longer are we unfamiliar with how to conduct meetings via Zoom or Teams, and our International Marketing Conference and annual meetings have been completely virtual and even hybrid during 2021.
Staff in every Council office have found ways to connect with buyers of U.S. corn, sorghum, barley, distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) and ethanol in their markets – oftentimes finding that top-level executives who otherwise would not be able to attend an in-person meeting would make themselves available for virtual calls and presentations – ultimately leading to impressive sales.
Because the Council’s work during the pandemic has never stopped or even slowed down, we can truly say it has played a significant role, resulting in the best export year of all time for grains in all forms for the marketing year 2020/2021 – up 28.3 percent from 2019/2020 levels.
From officially opening our new office in India and signing memorandums of understanding with key global trading partners to how the Council has managed COVID response and expanded staff around the world to capture demand for our products.
Beyond our worldwide success stories, you can read about commodity-specific high points – record sales of U.S. corn and sorghum to our top market, China; successful Kenyan feeding trials for U.S. sorghum; record-setting imports of barley to Mexico; global growth of DDGS in aquaculture; and worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction policies helping to grow the market for U.S. ethanol.
Sadly, we are not on the other side of the pandemic just yet; but that only means our innovative efforts on behalf of the commodities the Council represents continue as, Together in Trade, we seek to meet the demands for U.S. commodities around the world.
