Feed&Grain.com |

The United States remains the leading provider of high-quality grains to the global marketplace; however, can we be expected to maintain that position forever? FEED & GRAIN looks at how the industry is positioned and the factors which impact our place in the grain quality equation.

What is Quality?

Quality means many things to many people. To some it’s a style of management that improves your business via TQM. Others use it as a way to wish someone well, without really meaning it; “Have a quality day!” says the perky clerk behind the counter.

Or, if you’re a little older like myself, it was a way to ensure my television set was manufactured to some undefined industry standard that the advertising told us was a sacred pact between manufacturer and customer: “Quality goes in before the name goes on!”

With messages promising enhanced quality of almost any product available to mankind slamming us through every media outlet, does anyone wonder if the overuse of the word “quality” has diminished its true meaning? In the world of consumer marketing, one could make a case that quality has become a throw-in phrase used to shed a more positive light on a product, service or system.

For our discussion, the question becomes how does the feed and grain industry view quality and does it run the risk of talking the talk without walking the walk.

High Stakes Game

With $6.00 corn, $13.00 soybeans and wheat prices inching back up to the $10.00 mark, this unprecedented price environment has created a marketplace where the stakes for creating and maintaining a reliable and consistent supply of high-quality grains has never been higher.

“Certainly, the dynamics of grain quality are constantly changing and that presents new challenges which need to be addressed at the farm level, at the elevator and in the processing chain,” says Dirk Maier, department head, Grain Science and Industry, Kansas State University. “With the rising costs associated with producing, protecting and procuring grains, keeping a consistent, high-quality supply of grains moving through the channel is critically important for our end user customers.”