National Export Initiative

Do they like pecan pie in Turkey? If they don’t now, they will soon if Randy Hudson has anything to say about it. Hudson, his wife Mary Jo and their family operate Hudson Pecan Company in Ocilla, Ga. Currently, they have their hopes focused on Turkey as a potential new market. This past June, Scott...

The United States has free trade agreements with 20 countries around the world that expand export opportunities for U.S. food and agricultural producers. To help exporters obtain information about tariff reductions resulting from these FTAs, the Foreign Agricultural Service recently launched the...

When the astronauts aboard the International Space Station received a shipment of food recently, it included jam from a company called Stonewall Kitchen. Jonathan King and Jim Stott started selling their homemade jams from a folding table at a local farmers’ market in Maine in 1991. Today, their...

With its rapidly developing economy and expanding middle class, Turkey has become an important market for U.S. food and agricultural products over the past decade. It’s also the destination of the latest USDA agricultural trade mission from June 10-14 as Acting Deputy Secretary of Agriculture...

Today, the American brand of agriculture is surging in popularity worldwide. Fiscal years 2009-2012 represent the strongest four years in history for agricultural trade, with U.S. agricultural product exports exceeding $478 billion over these four years. Overall, American agriculture supports 1 in...

For 80 years, Rogue Creamery has been passionate about the art of cheese making. This small company located in Oregon’s scenic Rogue River Valley produces a variety of handcrafted artisan cheeses using milk from its dairies. Its blue cheeses are considered “ambassadors” for the American Artisan and...

The European Union (EU) is a relatively new market for U.S. beef exports. It wasn’t until August 2009 when the United States began exporting high-quality beef (marbled with a high fat content) to the EU under a negotiated tariff rate quota for non-hormone treated beef.

Helping small- and medium-sized businesses export their products is a cornerstone of the President’s National Export Initiative (NEI), which aims to double U.S. exports by the end of 2014. The partnership between the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), non-profit U.S. agricultural trade...

This week, Congress will begin to take a look at important jobs legislation: new trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama and trade adjustment assistance to help train workers for the 21 st century economy. These agreements will help create jobs and provide new income opportunities for...

Last week, I was honored to lead USDA’s first-ever agricultural trade mission to Vietnam, which is quickly becoming one of the United State’s largest markets for agricultural exports. While there, I met with government and agricultural officials, witnessed trade relationships developing between U.S...