Page 29 - Export or Bust eBook

The House version of the new farm bill takes a different approach. USDA’s trade programs,
including the MAP and FMD, would be combined under a new International Market Development
Program funded at $255 million per year. The bill would guarantee $200 million in annual funding for
MAP and no less than $34.5 million for FMD, $10 million for the Emerging Markets Program and $9
million for Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops Program.

Under current law, only MAP would have funding after this year under the expiring 2014 farm bill.
Combining the programs would ensure all the programs have a permanent funding baseline.

Boosting both ag exports and export promotion funding has become vital to both the rural and the
national economy now that export sales represent 70 percent of U.S. cotton and tree nut production,
about 50 percent of wheat, rice and soybeans, and almost 20 percent of U.S. meat and dairy
production.

Asia’s growth markets

One export promoter pushing hard for the TPP is Manuel Sanchez, U.S. Grains Council (USGC)
regional director for South and Southeast Asia. In a phone interview from Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam
where he’s running an outreach program to large swine producers to promote sales of U.S. DDGS

USGC Regional Director Manuel Sanchez, in white shirt, with customers in Southeast Asia. 27
Source: U.S. Grains Council

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