March 12, 2012

US becomes South Korea's largest corn supplier in 2011

The US was the major corn supplier to South Korea in 2011, accounting for 77.6% of its total corn import, said Byong Ryol Min, US Grains Council director in South Korea.

Korea's total 2011 imports of feed grains and substitutes, including feed wheat, tapioca and lupine seed, decreased 7.7% compared to 2010.

"The decline we're seeing in mixed feed consumption is a reflection of diminishing livestock numbers as a result of the foot-and-mouth outbreak earlier in the year," Min explained.

Given the poor production output, pork imports increased drastically by 68.4% last year.

To curb soaring consumer prices, the government of South Korea stimulated imports with a duty-free tariff-rate quota policy. This is in addition to subsidies which cover the difference in cost of shipping chilled pork bellies by air transport instead of by ocean freight.

Consequently, Korea's livestock product imports exceeded one million tonnes for the first time in history. The US provided 36.9% of that total imports, which is equivalent to more than 2.3 million tonnes of US feed grains imported indirectly in the form of meat, according to the council's assessment.