U.S. Grains Council Update

The current status of trade for U.S. corn, sorghum, barley, ethanol, and distillers dried grains with solubles is good.  Cary Sifferath, vice president of the U.S. Grains Council shares more.

The past marketing year we saw very good exports of corn, sorghum, ethanol, and distillers dried grains with solubles coming out of the pandemic. As we continue to look for and expand markets, especially for ethanol, it is a key way to move grains out in a value-added form.

Major export markets include China, being the largest, Asia Pacific region with Vietnam being the second largest, and South Korea being the third largest. Two big markets take much of the distillers dried grains with solubles in container form. 

“This is a great way for local demand to be seen,” says Sifferath. “You can literally watch truckloads of  distillers dried grains with solubles leave plants in Wisconsin, get put into containers, and get shipped overseas.”

This year’s harvest provided a decent sized crop, however it was not as large as Sifferath would have hoped. He says that they are working hard to reassure international customers that the United States does have the products to be able to supply. 

“We’re very excited about a couple of different regions for emerging markets,” explains Sifferath. “One is India. We just recently opened up a new office in New Delhi, India. We’re quite excited about that as India already is a good market for U.S. Ethanol, and we’re wanting to expand that.”

The ethanol that is exported to India is being used for industrial use as India does not allow imported ethanol to be used for fuel blending. They use their domestic sugarcane based ethanol for that instead. However, they do not produce enough ethanol themselves to meet their own mandate. This allows for a great partnership with the U.S. Grain Council.

Sifferath adds, “It’s not just us that are dealing with inflation. So by reducing tariffs, it makes our products that much lower cost for our international markets to be able to import and helps them out as well. We’re very optimistic for the future of the grain markets.”