Japan is by far the largest foreign market for U.S. feed grains, importing over 15 million metric tons per year from the United States. This tremendous market for U.S. feed grains can be traced to the market development efforts of the U.S. Grains Council funded by barley, corn and sorghum producers and agribusinesses in cooperation with USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service as well as the opportunities presented by the famous “hog lift.” In fact, the origin of the Council can be traced to the “hog lift,” where in 1959 the U.S. agricultural industry and U.S. government assisted Japan in recovering its hog industry following two typhoons which hit the Yamanashi prefecture, the most important livestock producing prefecture in Japan. At the time, Master Sergeant Richard Thomas was working in public relations with an important U.S. Air Force general in Tokyo.

When Thomas heard about the heavy destruction of livestock, he thought about exporting Iowa hogs as an opportunity for the United States to help in reviving the hog industry. He took his idea to Don Motz, the U.S. agricultural attaché at the Embassy in Tokyo, who helped work out the details. When the Air Force flew Thomas to Iowa, he received enthusiastic support from Walter Goeppinger, president of the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA). In Washington, Raymond Ioanes, the administrator of FAS, agreed to help, as did the Japanese agricultural attaché in Washington. Iowa farmers agreed to provide the hogs. They selected seven purebred sows and two boars from each of the four lean-meat breeds, a total of 36 hogs. The U.S. Air Force agreed to supply a plane to fly the hogs to Japan. USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation donated 60,000 bushels of number one grade corn to be used for feed. The Governor of Yamanashi Province, happy with the offer from the United States, agreed that his agricultural staff would carry out the details of the project after the hogs arrived. This included mixing feed to U.S. specifications. The operation did not go smoothly. According to the Council’s 40th anniversary publication, “getting the hogs to Japan was no easy task.” Roscoe Marsden, president of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, rounded up 36 lean meat breeding hogs donated by Iowa farmers. The animals were shipped on an Air Force cargo plane fitted with special crates.

Accompanying the hogs were Marsden, his wife Kay, and NCGA director Albert Miller. Because there were no jet cargo planes at the time, the hogs and their escorts were forced to take a time-consuming, treacherous, island-hopping flight across the Pacific. At each stop, Miller and Marsden would bathe the hogs so that the animals wouldn’t overheat. The hogs arrived safely in Yamanashi, where they lived out their lives in new facilities and populated the prefecture with their descendants. Officials estimated that by the time the last of the original Iowa hogs died nine years later, their progeny totaled some 500,000 feed grain-guzzling animals. Following the “hog lift,” Yamanashi Province and the rest of Japan began to develop a modern hog industry. Coincidently, Bill Nelson and Elbert Harp of the Grain Sorghum Producers Association (GSPA) just happened to be visiting USDA when the Japanese agricultural attaché called FAS about U.S. assistance after the typhoon.

Nelson took the call from the Japanese Embassy. The Japanese agricultural attaché explained that his country was experiencing a critical, long-term shortage of feed grains. In the late 1950s, Japanese farmers raised only short structured, early maturing hogs on family farms with only one or two sows. Fish meal provided the protein, which was considerably more expensive than soybean meal. The attaché wanted to know if the United States had any feed grain for sale. Nelson assured the Japanese attaché that U.S. producers could meet all of Japan’s needs. That answer laid the ground work for years of U.S.- Japan cooperation and set the stage for Japan to become the largest foreign market for U.S. feed grains and also the foundation upon which the U.S. Grains Council was built. Grain producers in the United States had been looking to draw down huge grain surpluses in the late 1950s. In late 1958, Nelson had contacted FAS looking for ways to work with FAS overseas to develop markets. The experience with the “hog lift” and the answers to the Japanese attaché’s questions helped lay the foundation for the start of the U.S. Grains Council, which was chartered on July 1, 1960. The idea behind the organization was to develop overseas markets in order to draw down huge grain surpluses, boost growers’ incomes and help other countries.

Fittingly, the Council’s first office in Asia was in Japan, established in 1961. All other offices and activities have spawned from this one central location in Japan. While Europe was the primary target for U.S. grains, a Grains Council team in 1960 visited Japan to access conditions there. Japan’s public health officials wanted to improve consumers’ consumption of animal protein by increasing demand for meat, milk and eggs. With the help of the “hog lift,” grain feeding was introduced into Japan around 1960. It allowed cattle fattening to proceed beyond the bounds of Japan’s own feed sources, which are limited due to the lack of pasture and feed grain crops. U.S. exporters have been able to ride the wave of opportunity ever since. For almost 50 years, Japan has been a leading market for U.S. feed grains. The relationships built as a result of the “hog lift” were no less impressive. Iowa and Yamanashi prefecture established a sister-state relationship, the first of its kind between the United States and Japan. In fact, Iowa and Yamanashi will honor their 50th anniversary as sister states on March 4, 2010. In 1962, in appreciation for the “hog lift,” the people of Yamanashi sent Iowa a “Bell of Friendship” which currently sits south of the state Capitol.