Darcy Maulsby believes South Korean and Vietnamese consumers will be friendly to more U.S. beef imports. On a recent visit to the two Southeast Asian nations she realized people are accustomed to eating beef but have very little local land available for agriculture.
(Darcy Maulsby is an ag journalist who writes for VistaComm, the company that provides news stories for the Pipestone Vet Clinic Web site.)
Concerns about BSE still reverberate with South Korean consumers though. Because they eat beef regularly, the most recent BSE cases “shook them to the core,” Darcy says. Recently, millions marched to show that “teachers, mothers, and students are all worried about BSE.”
To calm those fears, some S. Korean stores offer an in-store scanning system at meat cases. “We saw U.S. beef in the meat cooler and we were able to scan packages to see the source of the meat. I asked the proprietor how many shoppers use this technology and he said few people actually use it but they like to know they can,” Darcy explains.
In Vietnam, Darcy wondered whether there were still hard feelings over what is known as “The American War.” She was told there really aren’t many people who remember those events first-hand—such was the population depletion during the war years. As a result, “most Vietnamese just want to move ahead.”
Better food is one goal and Darcy, who was traveling with a group representing the Iowa Corn and Soybean Growers, also saw a future for imported DDGs. “Their feed mills were very different, using as many as ten protein sources and up to 40 other ingredients to create feed for swine, poultry, and aquaculture.”
Read more of Darcy’s observations in this story.
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