The U.S. Meat Export Federation Strategic Planning Convention wrapped up Friday in Oklahoma Metropolis with the election of a brand new officer workforce. Dean Meyer, a corn, soybean and livestock producer from Rock Rapids, Iowa, is the brand new USMEF chair.
Along with elevating corn and soybeans, Meyer’s diversified operation – which he oversees along with his three sons – features a cattle feedlot and a farrow-to-finish hog facility. This offers him with a deep appreciation of the varied vary of agricultural sectors that make up USMEF.
“USMEF is a really distinctive group the place a corn grower from North Dakota, a cattle feeder from Texas and a soybean farmer from Indiana can pull collectively to market the identical product,” Meyer stated. “I’ve seen the momentum rising in the way in which these sectors work collectively, and my objective is to reinforce that much more. Carrying a number of completely different hats, I’ve a broad perspective – and this group is my ardour.”
Meyer grew to become concerned with pink meat exports by way of the Iowa Corn Growers Affiliation, the place he served as a director and as Iowa Corn’s USMEF consultant. Throughout his time within the USMEF management, Meyer has had a number of alternatives to go to main export markets and share particulars of his farming operation with importers, distributors and on a regular basis customers. His farm was additionally not too long ago featured in a video marketing campaign selling U.S. beef in Japan.
“It was actually an honor to showcase my household and my farm, and to teach Japanese customers on how we sustainably increase our livestock and crops,” he stated. “Our prospects abroad love the standard and security of U.S. pink meat, however they need greater than that. They wish to know the story behind these merchandise and particulars on how they’re produced. Having the chance to inform that story and interact with these prospects has been a really optimistic expertise.”
Meyer succeeds outgoing USMEF Chair Mark Swanson of Fort Collins, Colorado, founding father of meals security and administration consulting agency Tru Grit KGMS Enterprises LLC. Minnesota pork producer Randy Spronk will function USMEF chair-elect within the coming yr, whereas the vice chair is Steve Hanson, a cattle rancher from southwestern Nebraska. The latest USMEF officer is Secretary/Treasurer Jay Theiler, government vp of company affairs for Agri Beef, based mostly in Boise, Idaho.
Friday’s closing enterprise session supplied attendees a complete overview of the Biden administration’s present commerce initiatives and their potential influence on pink meat exports. Longtime U.S. commerce negotiator Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, who’s now a commerce coverage advisor with AgTrade Methods, LLC, praised her successors for his or her efforts to handle commerce limitations that restrict U.S. agricultural exports. However she questioned the diploma to which the Biden administration has prioritized agricultural commerce, noting that Congress nonetheless has but to verify the nominees for USTR chief agricultural negotiator and USDA undersecretary for commerce.
“So it is arduous to get that political push for agriculture when it is not the precedence that it has been in prior administrations – together with the Obama administration,” Bomer Lauritsen stated.
She spotlighted tense relations between the USA and China however famous that the huge Chinese language market nonetheless holds super alternatives for U.S. agricultural exports.
“I believe it is vital to attempt to separate meals commerce, and to calm among the rhetoric we’re seeing in our personal politics associated to China,” she stated. “Whereas I do know that your trade is having some difficulties with China, I might nonetheless argue that the Part One Settlement that we negotiated is a big success.”
Bomer Lauritsen closed by emphasizing the vital want for U.S. agriculture to stay engaged on U.S. commerce coverage.
“In the event you’re not there talking up, you are by no means going to see any optimistic adjustments,” she stated. “You need to interact with folks on the civil service stage – the place I used to be – in addition to together with your elected officers in Congress and your international nation counterparts, or issues will not get fastened.”
On Thursday, the convention centered on the forty fifth anniversary of USMEF’s inaugural workplace in Tokyo. The session showcased the worth the U.S.-Japan commerce partnership delivers for the U.S. pink meat trade, highlighting advertising initiatives and future alternatives. Japan has persistently been the main worth vacation spot for U.S. pink meat exports and 2022 isn’t any exception, with shipments by way of September topping $3 billion.
Masayoshi Kinoshita, director of meat advertising and commerce coverage for Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, kicked off the dialogue with an historic overview of meat provide and demand in Japan. Kinoshita recounted his optimistic experiences in working with USMEF and described the challenges Japan faces in its home manufacturing, resulting in an expanded position for imports in assembly the nation’s rising demand for pink meat.
A panel dialogue that includes USMEF-Japan workers was moderated by USMEF Vice President of Financial Evaluation Erin Borror and included Japan Director Takemichi Yamashoji, Advertising Director Satoshi Kato and Taz Hijikata, client affairs director. The session centered on Japan’s worth to the U.S. pink meat trade as a trusted and dependable buyer, and the potential for additional development as customers in almost all ages group proceed to shift from high-priced seafood consumption towards animal proteins.
Japan’s worth as a buying and selling accomplice goes past its billions of {dollars} in annual purchases, displaying an amazing urge for food for cuts and selection meats which might be underutilized in the USA. This demand delivers worth again to livestock producers and to each stage of the U.S. provide chain.
“Japan is importing $20 price of beef tongue from each animal this yr and its purchases of skirts and hangers provides $10.45 to every fed animal within the U.S.,” Borror stated. “Japan additionally accounts for greater than 6% of U.S. pork loin manufacturing and about 13% to fifteen% of our picnic manufacturing by way of its demand for floor seasoned pork.”
Panelists described latest advertising initiatives developed to advertise new functions and makes use of for underutilized cuts and selection meats in Japan’s foodservice and retail sectors. Longstanding trade relationships are key to USMEF’s means to introduce and check new functions within the Japanese market. This yr, for instance, advertising applications have focused the foodservice sector with promotions for fried pork loin, new pulled pork recipes using the picnic and new U.S. beef recipes for Japan’s fast-growing yakiniku sector.
“Inflation and a weakened yen have tightened client budgets and the market may be very receptive to attempting inexpensive protein choices,” stated Yamashoji. “We’re conducting promotions at foodservice and retail, and these new recipe concepts are reaching hundreds of thousands of customers by way of social media.”
Thursday’s actions additionally included conferences of USMEF’s standing committees, which permit members to obtain updates on points impacting particular sectors. Members of the USMEF Feedgrains and Oilseeds Caucus had been handled to an look by Oklahoma Secretary of Agriculture Blayne Arthur. She welcomed USMEF’s first-ever assembly in Oklahoma and praised the state’s agricultural organizations for his or her position in increasing world demand for U.S. pink meat.
World manufacturing forecasts, export projections, market entry challenges and logistics updates had been among the many agenda gadgets in breakout periods for the Pork and Allied Industries Committee, Beef and Allied Industries Committee and Exporter Committee. One presentation that acquired explicit consideration was a panel dialogue by USMEF’s administrators in Korea, South America and the ASEAN area on convenience-driven traits in product packaging.
The Exporter Committee and Pork and Allied Industries Committee collaborated on a decision requesting that USDA and the Workplace of the U.S. Commerce Consultant make it a high precedence to achieve regionalization agreements with key buying and selling companions associated to African swine fever and different international animal ailments. The decision notes that when applied in cooperation with state animal well being officers, these agreements could be a vital software for mitigating commerce disruptions within the occasion of an animal illness outbreak.
Former U.S. Commerce Consultant Robert Lighthizer, who spearheaded key commerce agreements achieved below the Trump administration, was honored with USMEF’s Michael J. Mansfield Award.
The USMEF Distinguished Service Award was introduced to The place Meals Comes From co-founder Leann Saunders.
USMEF members will subsequent meet on the federation’s spring convention in Minneapolis, Could 24-26.
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