MAP Important for Pacific Northwest Farmers

MAP Important for Pacific Northwest Farmers

MAP Important for Pacific Northwest Farmers

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

Every five years when the Farm Bill comes up for reauthorization, the Market Access Program or MAP is included within the Farm Bill. MAP helps U.S. producers, exporters, private companies and non-profit trade organizations finance activities to market and promote U.S. agricultural commodities and products internationally.

Past Chairman of the US Wheat Associates Randy Suess explains that opening up new markets as well as maintaing them is critical for Pacific Northwest commodities like wheat.

Suess: “Currently 66 different organizations receive this $200 million total and that was established in the 1985 Farm Bill. That $200 million hasn’t changed in the last 27 years. And yet market development and promotion is very important to us. We share in those costs, I think that is very biggest thing that everyone needs to know. Farmers contribute 60 percent of that cost and the Market Access Program comes up with the other 40 percent. So these programs we do around the world are farmer driven and comes out of our pocket. And every single bushel of wheat that we sell a portion is taken out through an assessment and we use it to fund programs like this.”

Suess shares that two years ago Cornell University did economic analysis showing that every dollar of wheat export promotion investment by U.S. wheat farmers and the government returns $115 to the U.S. economy.
I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
 

Previous ReportSharply Higher Wheat Futures
Next ReportUS Dehy Potatoes Help Feed The World's Hungry