It's a trip fueled by fear - Asian importers have come to Nebraska to check out the yields.
Importers have been skeptical about the soybeans produced by this year's drought. Their trade mission is to evaluate which region produces the best beans. Local farmers hope their efforts to produce during the drought will pay off.
The overseas soybean farmers are visiting different farms in different states.
This weekend they took a look at a Chapman farm, and said they're surprised with the high yields they saw, and are less worried about finding good product for the upcoming year.
"Soybean is a funny crop, you never know how much it's going to produce," said Tom Lin Tan, director of Hope Full Grain & Oil Group Overseas Company.
Lin Tan works for a Chinese company in Beijing. That company has a three million metric ton crushing plant. He said they've been worried about the finding good soybeans, a crop they rely on heavily.
Lin Tan said "Driving all the way from North Dakota, their yield was very good, and then we were thinking maybe we'll head to Nebraska and the bean will be terrible, but what we see is very good, we're pretty happy to see that."
Alex Tay, a soybean trader from Singapore, said "This particular acreage where it's actually irrigated is performing much better than dryer areas I've seen here in Nebraska."
Irrigated soybean farmer Greg Greving played host to the overseas buyers. Greving said "We've got irrigation here so our soybean quality is going to be good this year, the yields are good."
He said he was happy to show his farm to those on the trade mission because he knows that the overseas customers prefer contact over a contract, and that's what this meet and greet experience is about.
After the customers collect all the soybeans they will take them to a laboratory to test for several qualities; the most important being the amount of crude protein.
