How Do USDA Trade Missions Benefit Ag Industry?

What are some of the benefits and opportunities for farm, and food commodity groups and businesses involved in USDA led agricultural trade missions?  Darren Armstrong of the U.S. Grains Council said it is both identifying new markets and what markets are ready for expansion.

“You find some place that there's some potential that is right; that they've got an economy. Those things we can pinpoint that hey this place is somewhere that you can do business, they can use their product, we go there and we plant that seed then you nurture it then until it grows and it yields.”

Craig Willis of Growth Energy said such missions for his group and others in the bio fuel industry is about education and resolving regulatory issues that impede export business.

“We try to correct the misinformation that's out there. We find out what regulatory bottlenecks are there, and we form the relationships to figure out how to correct them and how to allow ethanol in to the market.”

The Agriculture Department is gearing up for its next series of Ag trade missions seven total scheduled for 2020 including stops in North Africa, the Philippines,  Spain, Portugal, Peru, United Arab Emirates.

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