Problems at the Foreign Agricultural Service

Farm and Ranch February 23, 2009 Exports are important to Pacific Northwest farmers and the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service is the agency responsible for helping U.S. agriculture with marketing overseas. But the FAS is in trouble. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack mentioned it during a recent address to national wheat organizations. Vilsack: “Here is the unfortunate circumstance with FAS. The problem is that in the past that program has been inadequately funded through the budget. It has been taking resources from a variety of pots of money to make up the difference in its operating expense. Well this year because of the downturn in the economy and a variety of other reasons those resources, those pots of money are not available. So now it faces a serious deficit. A multi-million dollar deficit in its budget. And unless we get Congress to fill that gap it may be more difficult for it to do the work it has to do to promote the products you are all interested in promoting.� What Vilsack didn’t detail is that the FAS budget situation is so bad that just before the Obama Administration took over the agency’s outgoing administrator had begun the process of intending an agency-wide furlough, or temporary layoff. The FAS has had to curtail travel. These and other details were reported by Jerry Hagstrom on DTN. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.