What does agriculture and the tropics have in common? The Panama Canal - the highway of agricultural products from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
The U.S. Grains Council hosted their International Marketing Conference in Panama City, Panama last week and Nebraska Corn Board directors and staff had the opportunity to attend.
Besides the general sessions and Advisory Team meetings, an excursion from the conference allowed attendees to enjoy a beautiful, balmy evening on a dinner cruise through the Panama Canal and through the locks from the Pacific side going inland to Gatun Lake. The following day, they got a first-hand view of the new Canal expansion site and learned how it would affect world trade – especially with benefits to agriculture.
The expansion of the Canal will not only allow for vessels to travel through the Canal more efficiently, but think of the opportunities for exports of Ag products from and to the US! The expansion is going to be a wider and longer "lane" that will allow larger vessels to travel through on both sides - the Atlantic and Pacific sides. The world is truly changing but this is an exciting time for us in agriculture to experience how the Canal has and will continue to bring our ag products to the dinner plates of our foreign customers.
Nebraska Corn Board chairman, Alan Tiemann, also serves on the Grains Council’s Executive Committee and is the Board Liaison to the Membership/Communications A-Team. NCB staff, Kelsey Pope, is also a member of the Mem/Com A-Team and they were able to complete some exciting stuff for the Grains Council. For the past year, the A-Team has been working on a new branding initiative, fresh and new with an updated logo and vibrant, user-friendly website which just launched – go check it out here!
NCB Executive Director, Don Hutchens was awarded for his service to the Grains Council for over 25 years.
Find more pictures on our online Flickr photo album here.
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