Participants tour the Cargill Westwego export facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. Photo courtesy of IGP KSU.
“With interaction of personnel from IGP and our teammates, I really think that we’ve not only built a strong relationship between all of us, be we’ve learned a lot from each other and each other’s experiences,” said Kamal Dieck, former course participant and commercial director at Beneficio Dieck. “It really gives you a lot of great and useful knowledge of different aspects of the business.”
Part one of this training will focus on the fundamentals of grain purchasing, and part two will focus on contract pricing and hedging.
The first part of the course will be April 9-12 and will cover topics including the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) grading standards and how they are implemented; how to read a USDA report; examination of world supply and demand for grains; how to establish a proper contract; grain trade rules; and international contracts along with arbitration systems and issues.
The second part of the course will be April 16-20 and will focus on topics including the workings of commodity exchanges, futures trading, hedging and price risk management. This also will involve discussions of futures, options and OTC contracts, and how they are applied to a risk management strategy.
The optional field trip to an export facility in Portland will be April 13-15. Participants will be able to apply information from the course to hands-on experience at this facility.
“This training will benefit individuals who are responsible for buying U.S. food and feed grains, including international grain and soybean buyers, government officials and other professionals responsible for the purchase, shipment and handling of U.S. grains,” said Jay O’Neil, senior agricultural economist at the IGP Institute.
