Posted April 28, 2014
USDA’s export programs are now operational after funding lapsed without a farm bill last year, according to USDA foreign Agricultural Service Administrator Phil Karsting. Des Moines’s WHO TV reported on the story here.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack recently announced that USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) awarded funding to more than 60 U.S. agricultural organizations to help expand commercial export markets. USDA is now accepting applications for 2015 export development program funding.
“Now that Congress has passed the Farm Bill, USDA is moving quickly to implement our trade promotion programs to help open and expand opportunities for farmers, ranchers, and small businesses and build on the past five years of record agricultural exports,” said Vilsack. “These programs are an important investment in rural America. Every dollar we invest in trade promotion provides $35 in economic benefits.”
The Market Access Program (MAP) allows FAS to partner with agricultural trade associations, cooperatives, state regional trade groups and small businesses “to share the costs of overseas marketing and promotional activities that help build commercial export markets for U.S. agricultural products and commodities.”
The Foreign Market Development (FMD) Program “focuses on trade servicing and trade capacity building by helping to create, expand and maintain long-term export markets for U.S. agricultural products.”
For more information on agricultural trade, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
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