USSEC hosted a meeting aimed at maintaining Korean feed mills’ interest in repeat purchasing of U.S. soybean meal (SBM) in 2015.  At this meeting, USSEC talked about the 2014 U.S. SBM Technical Workshop conducted in April to eleven feed mill purchasing staff representatives who did not attend the workshop.  The debriefing included:  factors affecting planting intentions of U.S. soybean growers including price ratio between soybean and corn, input costs, rotations and planting conditions such as weather; forecasted U.S. soybean planting hectares, soybean production and pork and broiler productions in 2014; the distribution of soybean meal processing across the state of Indiana; results of amino acid analysis of the Korea Feed Association (KFA) on imported SBMs that have arrived since 2008; factors affecting global the soybean meal market situation including supply and demand of the U.S., South America, China, India and Southeast Asian countries; and assessment and management of the Korean public’s fear of the H5N8 avian influenza virus transmitted to humans through contact with animals.  USSEC emphasized the importance of the amino acid profile of imported SBM as analyzed by KFA on 38 cargos of imported SBMs since 2013 and recommended that the purchasing staff consider amino acid content when they make SBM purchasing decisions.
USSEC also introduced the U.S. SBM buyers team scheduled to travel to Milwaukee in September.  This team will invite purchasing staff of feed mills and broiler integrators to visit the U.S.  USSEC explained the objective and tentative itinerary of the team visit that will attend U.S. Soy Global Trade Exchange.  The team will also observe export elevators on the Gulf of Mexico and visit soybean farms and crushing plants in Indiana.