MDA Trade Impact mission brings Colombia, Peru into focus
Colombian consumers have an appetite for corn-fed American beef.
Written by Jonathan Eisenthal
Citizens of Colombia and Peru have been buying more American farm products every year for at least the past seven years. A recent Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) Trade Impact Mission brought representatives of the corn, beef, pork, poultry and soybean industries to meet the wholesale and feed industry people in these important markets.
Minnesota Corn Research & Promotion Council member Jim O’Connor represented Minnesota’s corn sector on the mission.
“It’s so important to have relationships between us and our customers. People buy from people,” said O’Connor, who farms in Blooming Prairie. “There is real value in shaking hands, looking the other person in the eye. Maybe sharing a smile or a concern. There is an emotional connection that is there, and you don’t get that through an email or a text message.”
MDA Commissioner Thom Petersen led the delegation of 14, which also met with USDA officials and the US ambassadors to both countries. U.S. Grains Council representatives accompanied the tour to offer their expertise.
“One third of our corn production approximately goes to exports, so it stands to reason that one third of our price received is contingent on those exports,” O’Connor noted. “These other parts of the world don’t have the ability to produce enough corn for their livestock because of climate or geography or transportation issues—I would just as soon have that corn come from the United States instead of other countries.”
Bev Durgan, dean of the University of Minnesota Extension Service, found the trip to be a fascinating window on a foreign market and what drives its consumption of US goods.
“Traveling there you see that these are very modern countries, and they are looking forward and they have an increasing middle class with increasing spending power and willingness to spend on imported products,” Durgan said.
Between 2013 and 2018, the U.S. Grains Council reports American exports of all grains to Colombia rose from just over 4 million metric tons to 6.3 million metric tons. Of that, five million metric tons was corn, worth an estimated $840 million dollars. Between 2013 and 2018, U.S. exports of all grains to Peru rose from 1.5 to almost 4 million metric tons. About 3.25 million metric tons of that was corn.
Marketing is an important factor in US export success. For the past several years, a food label, SaborUSA, has alerted customers in Colombia that the labeled product originates in the United States.
“This is a label that was created in Colombia to give people the emotional connection to their food,” O’Connor says. ‘Sabor’ means flavor in Spanish. “Colombian consumers see that label and they know they are buying a quality product from America.”
The United States has had a free trade agreement with Colombia since 2012, and in that time US exports to Colombia have tripled.
