The effectiveness of USDA export programs

Farm and Ranch April 12, 2011 A U.S. House Agriculture subcommittee held a hearing last week to review the USDA’s export promotion and market development programs.

John Brewer, administrator of the department’s Foreign Agricultural Service, told the subcommittee record ag exports are expected this year but he did make a plea to lawmakers for continued congressional budget support for the export programs.

Brewer: “U.S. agricultural exports increase by $35 for every $1 invested by government and industry on market development.”

And Brewer said increasing exports helps the U.S. in many ways.

Brewer: “Every one-billion dollars in agricultural exports generates an additional 1.3 billion dollars in economic activity and supports 84-hundred American jobs.”

Key programs run by the FAS include the Market Access Program and the Foreign Market Development program. Both of those share the costs of overseas market development efforts of U.S. non-profit agricultural trade organizations, including U.S. Wheat Associates.

The study done for the USDA which showed that 35-dollar return on every dollar invested in export development found that U.S. wheat producers received 23-dollars in net revenue for every one dollar they invested in export promotion between 2000 and 2007.

When President Obama called for a doubling of U.S. exports he was talking about overall U.S. exports not just agriculture, but the USDA’s Brewer believes doubling ag exports in that time period is achievable though it will take more funding for export programs. USDA is asking for 20 million more dollars in the 2012 budget for export initiatives.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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