Iowans Participate in the U.S. Grains Council Corn Harvest Quality Report
Posted on January 16, 2014 at 3:50 PM by Iowa Corn
Iowa farmer representatives and Government Relations Director, Mindy Larsen Poldberg are participating in the U.S. Grains Council Corn Harvest Quality Report. The objective in Japan and Korea is to build relationships with key export customers and ultimately increase demand for Iowa corn. After the past few years, price and quality have been a concern for key Asian markets. In Asia, personal connections are extremely important and it is key to have corn farmers meet their customers to strengthen our corn export relationships.
The group arrived to the hotel after 11 p.m. on Sunday and it was right to work on Monday morning. We first met with the U.S. Grains council staff in Taiwan (Clover Chang) to go over final details of the U.S. Grains Harvest Quality Report. The goal of this customer service mission is to meet with over 130 persons who are the ac
tual grain buyers for their companies, and to provide the corn quality report information. Our first presentation of the information was to the National Anim
al Industry Foundation, or NAIF. This is a quasi-government agency (government sponsored nonprofit) that functions like extension service but also provides loans and other farmer programs. They are also a substantial buyer of corn for livestock. We met with the CEO Michael Chung-Ginn Lee.
This organization is a bridge between the farmer and the government. Their opinion is that U.S. corn is always preferred due to its quality, but the price the past few years has been the barrier. When the price difference is less compared to other countries they likely will return to buying U.S. corn. We encouraged them to consider both price and qu
ality in the future. They were very pleased to be able to ask questions directly to the corn farmers.
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