TPP & Spuds

We’ve been hearing a lot about the Trans Pacific Partnership and how great it’s going to be but when you drill it down to the average farmer, what does that mean? Matt Harris, Director of Gov't Affairs for the Washington Potato Commission explains.

HARRIS: It does benefit our family farms in Washington State and when we look at it from a potato perspective of the Trans Pacific Partnership we see concessions on our frozen and fresh potato products that we export and also dehydrated products. The markets that we have interest in include Japan, Viet Nam and Malaysia. What we see, for example, for the country of Japan in 2014 there is currently a 8.5% tariff on frozen potato products and in 2014 the U.S. exported roughly $288 million dollars worth of those products to that country.

$216 million of that came from Washington State at an 8.5% tariff.

HARRIS: That tariff will be reduced over a four year period. So year one, once that agreement is ratified, that 8.5% tariff should fall in year one to 6.375% and then in year two it will go to 4.25and then year three it would be 2.125 and then in year four it would be zero.

And that’s Washington Ag Today. I’m Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.