Page 26 - Export or Bust eBook

Augusto Bassanini, chief operating officer for United Grain Corp., knows firsthand the challenges of
building all three. This experienced grain exporter tells Agri-Pulse that after taking years to build trust
and a reputation for reliability, “any interference with that trust, that reliability, is going to have an
immediate impact … So, you spend years building that rapport and everything could change
overnight.”

“It takes years, especially in Asia, to build that rapport,” he says, “and you have to build it face-to-face.”

Bassanini says he’s seen major new export markets
developed in South America, Asia and elsewhere
thanks to vital funding from farmers’ checkoff
dollars and USDA’s export promotion programs.
But he warns that current concerns over U.S. trade
agreements and tariff battles with China “create an
environment of uncertainty,” forcing buyers and end-
users to scramble to find new sources for the grain,
soybeans, or other commodities they need to stay in
business.

Vancouver, Wash.-based, United Grain operates grain
terminals in Oregon, Montana, and North and South
Dakota where, Bassanini says, “small farming
communities are dependent upon grain exports for
providing crucial revenue to those remote locations.”
So, any threat to export growth will have a disproportionate impact on these farming areas. And he says
that threat is already here.

“We continue to lose market share in terms of volume to competing major export hubs like South
America, Brazil, Argentina, Russia and the Black Sea region,” he says. “If we are going to
compete with them on a yield basis, I don’t think we are going to win that fight.”

Still, he says that despite headwinds, “we continue to expand our share in regions like Southeast Asia
because competing countries are not able to deliver quality products on a consistent, reliable
basis.” Maintaining these gains, he says, depends on the U.S. investing in improving supply chain
efficiencies, upgrading the infrastructure needed to deliver product reliably, and avoiding even
rumors about trade disruptions.

Disruption Concerns

Since taking office, the Trump administration has made several gains on the export front for agricultural
products.

“We’ve had some success over the last year. Most notable, obviously, is beef back into China after
13 years. We just announced pork back into Argentina since 1992,” Secretary Perdue testified
during a recent Senate Agriculture Committee hearing.

“We’ve negotiated U.S. rice into China for the first time ever. We’ve still got some technical details to
work out there. Lifted South Korea’s ban on poultry imports. We’ve eased the regulations on
U.S. citrus in the European Union (EU), and we’ve resumed distiller’s grains back into Vietnam.”

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