Des Moines Register
06-18-06
Iowa-born leader opens global doors
Seng works to expand meat markets
JERRY PERKINS
REGISTER FARM EDITOR
Phil Seng has traveled the world since he grew up on a farm near Lost
Nation.
Seng, 56, is president of the U.S. Meat Export Federation, a Denver,
Colo.-based organization that promotes exports of U.S. red meat.
Last week, after attending the World Pork Expo in Des Moines for a
celebration of 15 straight years of record pork exports, Seng jetted off
to Washington, D.C., and then to Paris.
It's all in a week's work for Seng, who estimates he covers about
200,000 miles a year by plane.
"I thought riding on a tractor was fast when I was a kid on the farm,"
Seng said from Paris last week over his cell phone.
Seng now rides the roller-coaster world of international trade and its
ups and down from local politics, animal diseases and currency
fluctuations.
All three of those steeply banked curves can be found in Japan, which
has come to represent both the successes and failures of U.S. meat
sales abroad.
Seng speaks fluent Japanese, has been married to a Japanese woman
for 32 years and lived in Japan for 12 years, including eight years as
the meat federation's Asian director.
Years of hard work developing the Asian beef market went up in
smoke in 2003 after the discovery of BSE, or mad cow disease, in a
cow in Washington state. Japan resumed imports in December 2005
only to suspend them five weeks later when a New York veal company
shipped prohibited bone-in cuts.
The ban has caused the loss of billions of dollars for the beef industry.
"That's a trauma no industry should have to go through," Seng said.
"It's a tough issue to defuse once it has become politicized as it has in
Japan, where it's a celebrated issue."
Alan Albright, a cattle producer from Lytton, said Seng is the right man
to have at the helm during these trying times.
"He's a rural Iowa boy who's made it big on the international trade
scene," said Albright, who was a Meat Export Federation director for
13 years. "Although people don't know much about Phil here, he's very
well-known around the world."
Reopening the Japanese market has proven to be extremely difficult,
Albright said.
"We're at the end of our rope," he said. "We might need to rally the
cowboys."
Although Japan has closed its doors to U.S. beef, it's opened a window
for U.S. pork.
U.S. pork exports to Japan are down during the first three months of
this year, but Japan purchased almost 40 percent of the record 2.66
billion pounds of U.S. pork sold overseas in 2005.
"Pork sales in Japan have done well because of the double whammy"
of the beef ban and fears of avian influenza, which has hurt poultry
sales, Seng said.
Because of Japan's importance to U.S. meat exporters, Seng's
background as director of the federation's Asian office from 1982 to
1990 has paid off.
After growing up on his family's farm, Seng studied political science at
St. Ambrose University in Davenport, where he met his wife, Sumie, a
foreign exchange student from Japan.
Seng earned a master's degree in East Asian studies with a specialty in
Japan at the University of Arizona.
He taught English at a Japanese women's college, took a job with the
Japanese Foreign Ministry and was the morning TV anchor for an
English language newscast in Tokyo.
Seng remembers reading on the air the announcement of the first
trade agreement that opened the Japanese market to U.S. beef.
"I had no idea what that would lead to," Seng said. "Back then, it was
easier to buy whale meat than beef in Japan. The only beef in Japan
came from Australia."
Seng returned to the United States in 1978, where he worked for a
Japanese company.
"At that time, people had no concept how the Japanese market
worked," Seng said. "Working for a Japanese company gave me a
tremendous insight into the market there."
When the U.S. Meat Export Federation wanted an Asian director in
1982, Seng was ready to go back to Japan to promote U.S. meat
sales.
At the Meat Export Federation, Seng was able to combine his
background in farming with his interest in international markets.
"Coming from the farm, I was always interested in agriculture," he
said.
In 1982, when Seng joined the meat federation, there were more
exports of live hogs to Asia then there were sales of U.S. pork.
"Farmers there wanted our genetics," Seng said, not U.S. meat.
In Japan and Korea, politically powerful farm organizations resisted
imports.
"Farmers there saw our meat as a direct threat," Seng said. "But we
felt their protein consumption was low and we could expand our sales
there without hurting their domestic livestock producers."
U.S. meat sales in Asia grew slowly, year by year, with many of the
first sales going to hotels that catered to Western tourists.
Then, Seng said, the Asian economic boom led to a classic case of
foreign market development: As incomes rose, consumers used their
increased purchasing power to improve their diets. That meant buying
more protein, especially meat.
U.S. meatpackers aggressively pursued foreign markets, Seng said,
and meat shelf life research at Iowa State University and Texas
A&M helped get beef and pork safely into supermarkets in Asia.
"Steady advances in the quality of U.S. meat was the catalyst that got
pork to take off," Seng said.
Soon after Seng took over as the Meat Export Federation president, it
opened an office in Mexico City. The office also works on developing
markets in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, said Gilberto Lozano, the
federation office director.
Mexico is the second-largest buyer of U.S. pork behind Japan in terms
of the value of pork purchased, but is No. 1 in terms of tonnage.
Imports of U.S. pork to Mexico grew 32 percent in volume and 22
percent in value to $141.4 million during the first three months of this
year.
Lozano said the Mexican market for U.S. pork has grown an average of
5 percent a year.
As in Japan, Mexican hog producers are unhappy about U.S. pork
imports.
And, like Japan, the U.S. Meat Export Federation's strategy is to
complement, not compete with, domestic producers.
"We are trying to gain a position without hurting the Mexican
producers," Lozano said. "There's more demand for pork in Mexico
than their domestic pork producers can supply."
Lozano said Seng's experience in Asia has given him a long-term
vision. "He's a great leader who gives you direction, but he doesn't
impose on you. He guides you."
Dennis Erpelding grew up on a farm near Whittemore and can
appreciate the distance that Seng has traveled since leaving Lost
Nation.
Erpelding, who is manager of Elanco Animal Health's government
relations, public affairs and communications, takes over as chairman of
the U.S. Meat Export Federation in November.
"Phil's got that Iowa farm boy philosophy - he understands agriculture,
he has a hard work ethic and his international experience gives him an
understanding for world markets," Erpelding said.
Erpelding said Seng has a strong presence and standing in the
international meat trade.
"It doesn't matter if they're from Asia, Europe or South America,"
Erpelding said. "They all know Phil and have a high regard for him."
Seng took a typically long-range view when he was asked by a hog
producer at the World Pork Expo about the future of U.S. pork sales to
China.
"The Chinese market has been tempting since the 18th century," Seng
said. "The Chinese economy has been one of the fastest growing in the
past 10 years and it's a voracious market for pork with large urban
populations. But I caution people not to think that China will be the
next Japan. That's 15 years away."