The U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to shift farm export expansion efforts from a “one-size-fits-all” approach based on world geographic regions to strategies tailored to specific market needs.

USDA SECRETARY Tom Vilsack discusses U.S. farm export growth during the 2010 Commodity Classic in Anaheim, Calif.

“To expand trade globally I think we have to think differently about trade,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told 4,300 corn, soybean, wheat, and sorghum growers at the 2010 Commodity Classic in Anaheim, Calif.

The new farm export direction runs parallel to President Obama’s National Export Initiative. While the secretary voiced continued support for free trade agreements and the ongoing Doha trade talks, he says more effort is needed.

“We have to realize that not every country that we discuss trade with is in the same (trading) position,” Vilsack said.

The new USDA approach will include “different strategies for different markets” including long-term versus short-term market development in “fragile states” including Afghanistan which is building toward a more stable economy. In small countries with more immediate market potential, the USDA would push the American brand.

“We need to put resources into those countries that allow them to understand the significance and importance of the quality of the American brand regardless of the commodity we are trading,” Vilsack said.

Essential to U.S. farm export growth is countering positions by countries which “implicitly or explicitly” create barriers to American trade. The U.S. must work harder to create the technical expertise to tear down the barriers, he says, and build a distribution system to create a domestic incentive for trade with America.

“We continue to work with technical experience and expertise to break down sanitary and phytosanitary barriers that are being constructed in emerging, high-growth potential areas (including China).”

President Obama has a goal to double U.S. trade opportunities over the next five years. While the secretary called the aspiration a “tall task,” he notes that U.S. agricultural trade has grown from about $50 billion a decade ago to about $100 billion currently.

Vilsack showered praises on the shoulders of U.S. farmers and ranchers who grow 108 billion pounds of protein annually to feed a hungry world. American agriculture generates one out of every 12 jobs. Less than 10 percent of a U.S. family’s annual disposable income on average is spent on food.

“I believe rural America is the heart and the soul and the guts of America,” Vilsack said. He equated farmers and ranchers to gold medal Olympians.

“You would think there would be gold medals for all of you; that we would have ticker-tape parades for farmers,” Vilsack said. “You’d think there would be a Hall of Fame for the 2.2 million of you that produce our food, fiber, fuel, and feed.”

The USDA chief expressed concerns over the aging American agricultural population, noting a 30 percent increase in farmers over the age of 75 and a 20 percent decrease in farmers under age 25.

One solution for expanding agriculture to feed the growing world population, Sec. Vilsack says, is the expansion and greater acceptance of biotechnology.

“The reality in the world today is the population continues to grow and the amount of land available to raise food, fiber, and fuel continues to shrink as communities expand and develop around the world,” he said.

“We have to use science in a significant and important way to increase productivity. Biotechnology has that opportunity.”

To watch a Farm Press video from Secretary Vilsack’s Commodity Classic news conference, use this link: Vilsack: Thank you to farmers.

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