SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Kicking off the 2023 Illinois Grain Tour at the 70th Farm Progress Show in Decatur on August 29, Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) Director Jerry Costello II referred to the annual farm machinery and technology exposition as the “Disneyland of all farm shows.” According to one prospective foreign grain broker, the description was apt. 

“The FPS was excellent and very eye-opening from a farm trader’s perspective,” said Pham Hung, of Vietnam, during a phone interview following the three-day grain buyer’s tour, which ended on August 31 with a bus ride to Chicago. 

Along the way, the 27 international tour participants from seven countries, along with interpreters and IDOA leaders, visited eight Illinois agricultural industry. The tour stops included visits to the Illinois Soybean Association offices in Bloomington, Marquis Energy in Hennepin, equipment and processing companies and MANNS Traders in Chicago. The whirlwind bus tour began with a greeting from Costello on the patio of the IDOA Tent on opening day of the 2023 FPS.

“Agriculture is the biggest industry in our state with over a $25 billion annual economic impact,” Costello said. “This is our 27th grain tour, and we have 27 participants here today. Over the last five years, these grain tours have produced over $270 million in sales. We look forward to forming relationships and partnerships with you. Thank you so much for being here.”

Hung said he was very impressed with his visit to Illinois for the 2023 FPS and the Illinois Grain Tour. “In Vietnam we never have had a similar kind of experience before,” the trader said. “I gained a greater overall understanding about how U.S farmers do agriculture, from seeding to applying fertilizers and harvesting.”

Hung remarked that very little corn and soybeans are grown in his native country. Vietnam is known as a historical importer of rice and an importer of soybeans along with corn as a feed ingredient to support their increasing level of meat production, which increased 30 percent in the past decade. His interest in the Illinois Grain Tour was focused on securing the best quality and priced corn, distillers dried grains (DDGs) and soybeans the Midwest has to offer. 

“I enjoyed the crop tour to RTS Farms on the first day of the tour, it’s where we really learned how Americans in Illinois do farming. With the development of technologies, and the way Americans seem to adapt it and use it earlier than the rest of the world, I would envision more business with Illinois farmers around the world including Vietnam, because Illinois is the number one state in the U.S. for soybeans and the number two state for corn,” said Hung. 

Costello said that in addition to providing revenue for Illinois producers and the state’s economy, the annual IDOA Grain Tour helps feed the world. Meeting prospective grain buyers from around the world and putting them together with food chain suppliers from Illinois checks all of those boxes, according to the IDOA director. 

“If you look at the sales of these grain tours over the last five years, the Latin America grain tour was worth around $65 million, and I believe the Asian grain tour was worth $62-$63 million for the sales that actually came out of those tours. This is something where again we are trying to connect the consumers of these products with the products we have right here in our state,” Costello said. 

In its basic form the Illinois Grain Tour is about relationships, Costello concluded. “We’re able to help build relationships for producers here in Illinois they most likely would’ve never had,” he said. “We’ve got people from Nicaragua, from Honduras, as well as Mexico, China, Vietnam and elsewhere here for this grain tour. We’re putting producers and consumers together and hopefully those relationships grow and flourish to the benefit of the total economy.”