Ralph Lents

As corn producers continue to look for new market opportunities, the importance of missions grows in importance.

Ralph Lents, Iowa Corn Promotion Board first vice president, returned from a mission to Colombia shortly after Thanksgiving.

“It was really good,” Lents said of the trip. “Colombia is ninth for our exports and in the top 10 of everything we export from the U.S. It’s a good market for us.”

While on the trip, delegates looked at the country’s grain facilities, feed facilities, pet facilities and other places where U.S. growers can sell more corn and beans. They also met with petroleum leaders to discuss purchasing more ethanol, which they’re interested in doing, Lents said.

“They buy a lot from us, especially pork, but there’s room for more expansion. They can’t produce enough to feed their people,” Lents said. “We even had a couple of merchandisers with us pick up new business while on the trip. As a country, they still like us and want to do more business with us. We’re in a trade deficit with them as they import more to us. The majority of our sugar, coffee and fresh flowers come from Colombia — $1.2 billion worth of flowers every year.”

Ryan Sauer

The biggest drawback in Colombia, however, happens to be the transportation system, Lents said.

“They don’t have the infrastructure or the ability to store grain. They can only hold three to four weeks of supply. So that aspect needs a lot of work,” Lents said. “It takes 11 hours by truck to transport the grain from the ports to the inner part of the country.”

Other countries that are proving to be strong trade partners include Canada and Mexico.

“Especially Mexico. They’re No. 1 for pork and Canada is in our top five for exports of ethanol — and they’re trying to get bigger,” Lents said. “But they do need more blending facilities.”

This spring, a delegation will travel to Mexico to focus on GMOs. Lents said a new leader of Mexico will be elected later this year, so Iowa Corn Growers Association leaders plan to head to the country in advance of the election to talk about GMOs and other issues important to Iowa growers.

Ryan Sauer, vice president of market development at the ICGA, recently traveled with a delegation to Vietnam. He said it was a “very important mission” and had the chance to sit across the table from the government leader who would ultimately decide whether or not to allow U.S. ethanol into Vietnam.

“If Vietnam were to allow us to export ethanol to them, it’d be a little less than 100 million gallons a year, which is what one ethanol plant can produce a year. We talked about conservation, sustainability, safety, responsibility and how countries can decarbonize their environment,” Sauer said. “I had that conversation with the vice minister, and we spoke about what we’ve done to use ethanol to decarbonize our economy. They have to get their people on board with the idea of using ethanol.”

Another market opportunity for corn growers happens to be sustainable aviation fuel.

“Manufacturers are looking into using corn-based ethanol as a source for sustainable aviation fuel. Japan in particular is extremely interested in it. In October, we had a group from Japan come to Iowa and we spent the entire week talking about ethanol, touring the state and discussing how they could get ethanol into the supply chain for sustainable aviation fuel and on road vehicles,” Sauer said. “Japan is one of our largest buyers of U.S. corn, so to sit down with those guys and say what we can do for them, those are really important conversations to have.”