Oregon officials and growers aim to boost exports of state’s agriculture and food products in S. Korea and Japan

Final month, Oregon Governor Kate Brown led a virtually two-week-long commerce mission to South Korea and Japan to advertise agriculture and different high Oregon industries.

In accordance with the Oregon Division of Agriculture, Japan and South Korea are the state’s second and third largest export markets for meals and agriculture merchandise.

Theresa Yoshioka, the worldwide commerce supervisor for the Oregon Division of Agriculture, organized an agriculture delegation that accompanied Governor Brown on the journey and performed conferences and website visits with commerce officers and companies that promote Oregon jams, wine, contemporary blueberries and different merchandise in South Korea and Japan.

Whereas the pandemic has compelled many commerce conferences to happen by way of Zoom or different digital means, Yoshioka thinks it was notably necessary for state officers and business companions to satisfy in individual with their Asian counterparts.

“Particularly in Japan and Korea … relationships are necessary for enterprise. And assembly in individual is necessary for persevering with these relationships and constructing new ones,” she mentioned.

Final yr, South Korea and Japan generated $600 million in export gross sales of Oregon agriculture and meals merchandise.

Oregon can also be the one state in the usallowed to export contemporary blueberries to South Korea. Oregon gained entry to that market 11 years in the past after “lots of exhausting work” by state agriculture officers, in line with Ellie Norris, the vice-chair of the Oregon Blueberry Fee.

“In Oregon, we’re very fortunate the place we dwell in a really open, pure house that we don’t want to make use of lots of heavy chemical compounds and we don’t have lots of pest pressures that the Korean authorities desires to maintain out,” Norris mentioned.

Norris can also be the proprietor of Norris Farms, a 650-acre blueberry farm in Umpqua. She mentioned about 25 % of her harvest will get exported to markets in the UK, South America and Asia. It may take as little as three days, in line with Norris, for blueberries picked from her farm to finish up on grocery store cabinets in Japan and South Korea.

For Norris, the journey was additionally a possibility to search out methods to spice up gross sales by changing into extra culturally conscious of how prospects in these markets consider and revel in “a luxurious fruit.”

“So in the event that they purchase these small portions of blueberries, they wish to make a phenomenal cake with them, a phenomenal dessert. They wish to showcase it,” Norris mentioned.

“So that’s my subsequent activity, is to go see what we may do to assist develop their data on how you can simply eat uncooked blueberries.”

Oregon can also be the nation’s high producer of frozen blackberries, marionberries and black raspberries. However the state’s frozen berry producers should not at the moment allowed entry to the Korean market. Yoshioka hopes that may change as a result of first in-person commerce mission made by Oregon officers to Asia in three years.

Ellie Norris and Theresa Yoshioka spoke to “Suppose Out Loud” host Dave Miller. Click on play to hearken to the total dialog: