USSEC hosted a group of Chinese journalists and key opinion leaders (KOLs) in St. Louis on November 21 and 22.  The journalists’ visit focused on agricultural trade between the U.S. and China.   USSEC was chosen by the U.S. State Department to be part of this tour because USSEC tells a positive story about expanding U.S. soybean trade to China as well as delivering important messages about the safety of GMO crops and biotechnology.
The social media group visited the fourth generation farm of Warren Stemme on November 21.  Mr. Stemme’s farm is located in the Missouri River bottom, near USSEC’s headquarters in Chesterfield, Missouri.  He raises soybeans, corn, wheat and a few vegetables.
On November 22, the group engaged in a webinar with USSEC Regional Director – North Asia Paul Burke; USSEC CEO Jim Sutter; USSEC QSSB and Customer Relations Manager Will McNair; and Xiaoping Zhang, USSEC Country Director – China.
The journalists started a topic #Microscope U.S.A. 2014# on the Chinese microblogging website Sina Weibo and posted about their experience and observations in the U.S. under this tagline.  At least two of the group members blogged about their positive experiences with USSEC after returning to China.  According to Ma Xiaolin, CEO of the Bo Association, the group gained much useful information during their meeting with USSEC.  He writes, “First, China’s soybean imports have sharply increased in the past five years, yet U.S. soybean exports to China have remained static due to capacity constraints.  Secondly, China has one of the world’s biggest aquaculture industries, especially freshwater aquaculture.  However, there is still huge space to improve China’s production capacity and environmental protection performance.  USSEC is making efforts to promote use of the IPA technique in China.”