USSEC’s Americas team gathered in Guadalajara, Mexico on August 8 and 9 to go over FY18 planning for the region.
The meeting, which was attended by all staff and contractors within region, was facilitated by USSEC COO Ed Beaman and covered the following topics: building a better case for funding; contract linkage evaluation; measurements and CRPs; outputs versus outcomes; standard surveys, budget, and reporting; compliance/policy and procedure implementation; FY17 overview, with end of year projections, successes and opportunities; and market access, animal utilization, aqua, and soybean oil activities and proposals.
The Americas region is the largest U.S. market for soybean meal (51 percent of total U.S. soybean meal exports), soybean oil (84 percent of total U.S. soybean oil exports), soy ingredients and the second largest for whole soybeans (9 percent of total U.S. soybean exports). This region imports from the U.S. year round and represents up to 84 percent of U.S. exports of soybean meal during the months of April to September in any given market or fiscal year, a fact that helps keep the U.S. crush plants crushing twelve months a year.