FAS VP Voice

BY EVAN MANGINO

USDA research shows—and American farm groups agree—that exports are vital to U.S. rural economic success, with every $1 of agricultural exports generating more than $2 in additional economic activity.

Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) trade policy wins last year generated more than $27 billion of U.S. economic activity. That same year, our operating budget was $237 million. The FAS workforce provided U.S. taxpayers a better than 11,000 percent return on their investment in 2024.

FAS has roughly 1,000 public servants—including more than 350 locally employed (LE) staff—across 95 overseas offices. Corrected for inflation, our operating budget has shrunk by 9 percent over the last 25 years.

In nominal terms, the budgets for our core export promotion programs—which generate more than $24 in return for $1 invested and require matching industry funds—have not increased since the mid-2000s. We are not a large group, but we accomplish amazing things on behalf of American farmers, ranchers, foresters, and exporters.

FAS Foreign Service officers and LE staff build and maintain relationships with foreign government officials who control access to valuable export markets. Foreign government officials won’t negotiate with individual companies. They work at the government-to-government level. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and FAS make up the USDA Foreign Service team, an irreplaceable resource for U.S. agricultural exporters.

When our export market contacts anticipate market closures, they let us know so we can preemptively engage foreign government counterparts and keep foreign markets open to U.S. exports. When political, economic, or agronomic conditions change, and a foreign government restricts U.S. product access to an export market, we apply the full breadth of U.S. technical expertise—federal government, land-grant universities, private sector, and trade associations—and regulatory tools to get U.S. exports flowing again.

Just because the FAS Foreign Service team brings sound science, logic, and trade law to the negotiating table doesn’t mean that we succeed right away; some agricultural trade barriers can persist for years or even decades.

Our overseas offices pursue market access, adapting tactics and building alliances with foreign market stakeholders (e.g., importers, further processors, retailers, food service, and even consumers) to make compelling arguments for U.S. products. And when conditions are ripe, our institutional knowledge helps us get the best possible deal for U.S. exporters.

When U.S. companies make mistakes, we capitalize on our relationships with foreign government regulators to reach common sense accommodations, preventing the destruction of millions of dollars of U.S. products and avoiding shipping losses.

In less developed economies, we provide technical assistance to foreign governments to ensure their regulators understand the effectiveness of the U.S. regulatory system and its overlapping food safety protections. These investments expand access for U.S. products in target economies and bolster the credibility of U.S. positions in international agricultural regulatory bodies.

International entities—including the Codex Alimentarius, the World Organization for Animal Health, and others—set standards that many markets around the world adopt rather than investing in their own regulatory review processes. When we invest in our less developed trade partners’ capacity to regulate agricultural trade, we are building more predictable, rules-based trading relationships, favorable to U.S. exports.

In addition, USDA purchases hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. agricultural commodities every year to support projects that make less developed countries more food secure, more stable, and more capable of purchasing a wider range of U.S. value-added products.

Overseas, FAS Foreign Service officers also apply local knowledge—cultural, linguistic, political, economic, structural—to inform U.S. policymakers, exporters, and producers back home. FAS analysis—informed by our literal in-the-field reporting—feeds into USDA statistical products that contribute to efficient global commodity markets and price discovery.

FAS overseas offices provide insights into local consumer demand, market structures, and market conditions that inform U.S. exporters. And FAS overseas offices’ market development activities increase U.S. exporters’ chances of landing export sales and reduce the cost of promoting U.S. products to foreign consumers.

FAS work doesn’t often grab attention or headlines. But it adds up. In 2024, our trade policy successes added nearly $9 billion to U.S. agricultural exports. Our export market development programs alone add $45 billion of U.S. economic activity every year. And U.S. agricultural exports generated $400 billion of related U.S. economic activity in 2024.

Our small but mighty corps of Foreign Service officers has been posted around the world for nearly 100 years, bringing the bounty of American agriculture to global markets—making the United States stronger, safer, and more prosperous.