Home Safe

Well, after 21, 937 miles traveled, and 2 foreign countries visited, the U.S. Soy Delegation made it home safely. I feel that this mission to Indonesia and the Philippines was a success.  I look forward to sharing the message with fellow producers on how our world is changing and what can we do to participate in markets like this.  Thanks to all those that followed and a special Thank You to the ND Soybean Council for their sponsorship and efforts they are putting forth in International Soy Marketing, it is truly paying dividends to U.S. soybean farmers.

Brent Kohls
ND Soybean Grower
Mayville, ND

Trade Mission Brief Synopsis (Return Trip Layover)

Thursday, December 8

Wow.  What an experience.  This trip has offered us as American Soybean Producers and leaders to not only meet soybean and soybean product buyers in these markets, it has also allowed us to meet and learn about the people of the Philippines and Indonesia.  This is very important because the more we find out about our customer and their future potential, the better we will be able to serve their food needs as they seek a lifestyle in which we have become accustomed to take for granted.

Nihon Warehouse

Fadjar Setiawan, AGP Indopro Indonesia (center) inspects the U.S. soybeans he supplied Nihon with.  The soybeans for this facility arrive via container and are manually offloaded and stored until being distributed throughout rural Indonesia in 50 kilo or 110 lb. bags.







Portable gravity table and fan set up in warehouse to screen out foreign material prior to being bagged for food consumption.

Nihon Warehouse

Wed. Dec. 7. Today we visited Nihon warehouse on the outskirts of Jakarta. Nihon purchases U.S. soybeans for Tofu & Tempeh production, which is a staple in the Indonesian diet as the median gross income per capita is only $3000 annually.


Delegates and Nihon Warehouse Management pose in front of U.S. Soybeans.  They prefer US soybeans because of the consistency, color, and appearance for food consumption..

Jakarta Indonesia

Jakarta population 15 million. It is estimated that 3 million people commute in and out of city daily.

Bean Sale

For some reason this post didn't show up last week.  During our visit in the Philippines, the Philippino Import Group purchased 2 vessels of US Soybean Meal for January & February totaling nearly 90,000 metric tons.  We had an opportunity to thank the Import buying group first hand at the Christmas Party held at the Manila Polo Club.  This import buying group is comprised of various feed millers in the Philippines.

JAPFA President & Mgmt. Team

Tuesday Dec 6 JAPFA

Departing gifts from JAPFA feedcom. Tom & Susanne Oswald (IA) left, Dr. Ferry (nutritionist) Matt Bainbridge (SD), Brent Kohls (ND) right




Lunch at Japfa. Traditional Indonesian fare. Yellow rice (under green leaf) was served with meal.  Yellow Rice is served instead of white rice for special occasions, like meeting with U.S. Soybean Farmers.  The Indonesians are very gracious and welcoming people.  A great discussion was had about Indonesian economics and the JAPFA Company. 



Greg Greving (near) NE and Gene Stoel (MN) exchange business cards and conversation with JAPFA feed buyer.

JAPFA

Java Pelleting Factory. Japfa Is the 2nd largest feed ingredient processor in Indonesia at 2.7 million metric tons annually. They have an integrated poultry operation which uses 60 percent of their production. they are using roughly 60 thousand metric ton of soybean meal a month. They want to buy U.S. meal, but said they have been getting quality protein meal from Brazil & Argentina. We told them about the quality crop harvested last fall in the US and what they can expect. We also discussed essential amino acid profiles of our beans to the head nutritionist.

Fadjar Christmas Party

US Soybean Delegates Dining with Indonesian Soymeal and Soybean buyers.

port traffic

Traffic to and from the port for container shipments is almost unbearable. A driver can make 2 loads every 3 days....

Charoen Pokphand (CP)

CP is the largest purchaser of soy products in Indonesia. They represent about 1/3 of the market. This large of a producer typically buys on price. With that being said, US product is typically priced higher into this market largely due to freight.







Chris Schaefer (left) AGP International Soymeal trader. Peter Mishek (right) MIA. Prior to visit in CP Office.

Container Terminal

Indonesia receives most of its soymeal and soybeans via container shipments.







(left) Staged Vessel being offloaded.  In the distance, a new ship load of containers arriving to terminal.  These ships will be unloaded and loaded in less than 24 hours.






Quay Cranes at work unloading containers from vessel.




Brent Kohls, North Dakota Soybean Delegate with Container shipyard workers.  These workers were just unloading a new Audi Car out of a container.  This car will have the engine and other parts installed in Jakarta Indonesia, then shipped back out.

Mustika Alam Lestari Port MAL

MAL located at Terminal 300 Port Mustica. Container facility which handles approximately 300,000 TEU's annually (20 ft containers). We met with the presidentof the company, Paul Krisnadi for a brief company overview. We then had a chance to tour the container yard, seeing vessels being loaded and unloaded.




Terminal President Paul Krisnadi(middle) explaining container offloading procedures to soy delegates.

Taman Mini

Sunday. Today the soy delegates visited Taman Mini. This park is similar to that of Epcot Disneyworld, showcasing the Indonesian culture, which is very traditional. This photo in front of the Museum of Indonesia. Www.tamanmini.com

1 10,000th scale map of the islands of Indonesia. Encompasses 5 hectares in the park.

Office building

Below, soy delegates coming out from Tan visit.

Tan Office building

Tan visit

On friday afternoon, we visited with Miko & Elaine Tan, son and daughter of Manny Tan. They own a myriad of businesses, some of which include fertilizers (Petronchemical Investment Limited), feed (Austronesia Commoditites), and real estate. Miko is the bean meal buyer and also works the export of fertilizer out of the Philippines. Above is their new office complex (green) they recently finished constructing. Yes, they own the entire building.
This is located near the Manila business district.

San Miguel

Today we visted with San Miguel. San Miguel is the largest buyer of whole soybeans and soybean meal in the Philippines.  Peter Mishek of Mishek Inc & Associates, gave a market outlook presentation of the current US and World Soybean situation.  US farmers discussed the good quality of the 2011 crop available for shipment.  Currently, San Miguel is receiving Soy product from Brazil & Argentina.  We stressed the fact that our protein and essential amino acid profile are often times better than soybean and soybean meal from the competing markets noted.

Christmas Party

A wonderful evening of dinner, dancing, and interaction. Each state was called up to speak. On behalf of ND soybean producers, I thanked buyers, brokers & feed millers for their business and also reiterated the fact of how true the council's logo is, Our World is Growing, especially in a market like the Philippines. 70 people in attendance. Many prizes, gifts and games.

Industry Christmas Party

Tonight I will be giving the Christmas gifts the ND soybean council has sent along. It will be held at the Manila Polo Club. I Will upload pics of the event. Have a great day. Will be a fun evening as many are planning to attend.

La Filipina classroom

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Rain and storm sewer or lack of

La Filipina Tour

www.lfug.com.ph La Filipina, located at the Port of Manila imports 100 percent U.S. Soybean Meal. Top notch operation.


Please see there website.

Jeepney

Jeepneys are the most popular form of public transportation in the Philippines. They were originally made from us military jeeps left over from wwII



- Posted by Brent Kohls from my iPad

Everlast feed mill

Everlast feed mill is a coop of farmers in the Batangas region south of Manila. here they are loading out product to be delivered to a farm in this region. This particular load was going to a 20,000 broiler poultry operation. These workers loading are paid weekly (5 Day week) earning about $3000 peso or roughly $14/day U.S.

Fighting feed

Jetbest supplies the Philippines with a feed to enhance poultry strength, especially for fighting animals which is a large market. This feed is sold to vendors in 50 lb. bags and is then sold to individuals on a 1 kilo basis in the local market. This goes along with other buying needs of the Philippine consumer as they only buy what they need for that day. No sams club or Cosco here.......


-

Unloading ddg container

Goes with other photo. This was the only work being done at the mill today. Very gracious of jet best to host us on a holiday.
These products are stored in bags, in the warehouse, then dumped into mixers with other products for complete feeds. Very labor intensive process.

Jet best feed mill tour

Very clean facility.

Wed 11/30 dinner

Hog roast dinner with Philippine farmers and feed millers. Great experience meeting and interacting with farmers across the world that share the same passion for farming and providing for others. 85 percent poultry and about 15 percent pork operations in this region. The poultry consists mainly of broilers.


- Brent Kohls

Catholic church

We stopped by this historic church between feed mill visits. The Philippine population is predominately catholic. This is different than indonesia where over 90 percent of its population is Muslim making raw soybeans more important for food consumption there. US soymeal is preferred in the phillipines because of its quality over other countries and it's importance in the poultry and livestock feed ration. Both key protein sources in the Filipino diet.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Tony Chua dinner party

As you can tell, This is certainly not your normal filapino house.
He has a squash court that you can see off in the background as well. This meal was prepared by Tony's wife. The philippine people are very welcoming and genuine people. Most speak very good English making the communication barrier much easier

Unloading container of distillers grain

Got it to work, goes with above narrative.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wed 11/30 technical difficulties.

Feed mill visit Jet best feeds distributes to over 600 farmer/retailers in the rural Batangas region. Today was a national holiday in the Philippines and the mills were not running. They were unloading product though as they had 14 trucks in line waiting to offload bags and bulk containers ( by hand of course)
I am having trouble with the blog pRees app on my phone and am unable to upload photos. Trying to figure it out.

- Posted by Brent Kohls from my iPad

Traffic

On Tuesday we were guests at the home of Tony Chua owner of Great Harvest, a trading/brokerage firm of feed ingredients. They are a very good customer to U.S. Soybean meal, no indication for that to change It was a wonderful seafood buffet followed by conversation and karaoke. I did my part and sang "sweet Caroline" for the U.S. Delegation. As I don't think they would have let us leave without singing. They were also other industry partners and feed millers present.

The traffic is horrific between 7am till about 9pm.

- Posted by Brent Kohls from my iPad

Safe Arrival

Good Morning.  We have arrived safely in Manila, getting in last night around 12 30 am.  We are staying in the downtown business district of Makati.  This part of the city is fairly westernized with many skyscrapers, shopping malls, and fast food restaurants.  |This area is also undergoing much new construction.  Will update later after our first day.  Manila Population estimated around 18 million with the entire island of the Philippines comprised of nearly 100 million.

Nice to arrive at for night to get in sync, also traffic from airport not as hectic.

Brent kohls