FOREIGN DELEGATION TOURS FARMS

American farmers export more than $40 billion worth of agricultural products a year.

Over 50 percent of U.S. wheat -- some 1.3 billion bushels -- is exported; about 35 percent of the soybean crop is shipped abroad and 20 percent of the corn crop.

Behind such numbers are people like Jelena Juricova of the Czech Republic, Cecilia Pineda of Colombia and Mustapha Tessa of Algeria.

Juricova is a trading manager of a grain importing firm. Pineda heads the Ministry of Agriculture's imports division in Colombia. Tessa is an assistant to the general director of an international trade organization.

They are among a delegation of a dozen agribusiness leaders from six countries who are learning more about the business of agriculture in a monthlong trip to the Midwest. Besides the Czech Republic, Colombia and Algeria, the delegation includes persons from Bulgaria, Trinidad and Venezuela.

The delegation arrived in Cape Girardeau Sunday for a 10-day visit centered around sessions on the U.S. grain industry offered by Southeast Missouri State University's agriculture department and field trips to area farms and agribusiness facilities, as well as the Chicago Board of Trade and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Wednesday, the delegation visited two area hog operations and a horse farm.

"We opened our economy two years ago and now we have a lot of international trade," said Pineda, whose goal is to set up a commodities exchange in Colombia, a nation with a population of about 30 million.

Juricova said that a drought in the Czech Republic has forced the emerging capitalist nation of 10 million people to import grain. Only two years ago the former Eastern Bloc nation exported one and one-half million tons of grain to Russia, she said.

"We are starting to build a free market economy," said Juricova, "but it's difficult."

For example, she said, Czech citizens have no experience with unemployment. Under the old state-run system, everyone had a job.

Tessa said Algeria, a country of about 25 million people, annually imports $500 million worth of U.S. grain. "There is a strong link between Algeria and the USA in the grain business," he said.

The trip was organized through the Organization for Trade and Agribusiness Development (OTAD), a not-for-profit organization headquartered in Jefferson City.

"When a country develops its agribusiness, it becomes a major trading partner of the United States," said Jack Ryan, OTAD project coordinator. "We believe agribusiness development abroad helps agribusiness here," he said.

"I think it's obvious our economies are becoming more internationally oriented," said Southeast agriculture professor Harry Pry.

U.S. farmers have a definite advantage simply in terms of the climate, he said. That's because about one-third of the world's land area is arid, with precipitation of 10 inches or less annually.

"And it takes 22 inches of precipitation during the growing season to produce our traditional crops," said Pry.

"Grain is the number one food crop of the world," he said.

Danny Terry, chairman of Southeast's agriculture department, said the international group is here "to learn basically about production, marketing and distribution of grain" and the commodity markets.

Ultimately, such visits should lead to increased exports of U.S. grain, he said.

Depending on the country, some agribusiness people are more familiar with the American system than others.

"The people from South America really understand what is going on," said Terry. "The people in the former Eastern Bloc are just not comfortable with the market system yet."