trade

American breweries and craft beer have grown in popularity in recent years. And that interest in these refreshing, artisan beverages is hopping from continent-to-continent thanks in part to collaboration between the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) and the U.S. hops industry.

Accurate crop mapping is a crucial process to informing reliable crop production estimates, addressing climate change, and developing strategies for sustainable agriculture.

There are many different approaches and practices when it comes to farming, but one thing is constant - to run your farm as a business, you need to be able to sell your product. To sell their product, a farmer or rancher needs to be visible to buyers and buyers need to have an easy way to reach producers.

The Codex Alimentarius, or just Codex for short, is an international set of food standards that protect public health by ensuring food safety and promoting fair trade practices. It is produced by an international commission that formulates voluntary international standards, codes of practice, and guidelines that make up the Codex Alimentarius. As we observe World Food Safety Day and the 60^th anniversary of the Codex Commission’s founding, we celebrate food standards for defining the path to safe food for everyone, everywhere.

For more than a decade, USDA’s Climate Hubs has been at the forefront of supporting climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts for U.S. farmers, ranchers, and forest landowners. Last week, the department significantly boosted its efforts globally, by launching the International Climate Hub.

We see them every time we purchase fresh fruits and vegetables: price look up (PLU) labels. The little coin-size stickers are stuck to everything from apples, bananas, and cantaloupes to watermelons, yams, and zucchini.

There are only a few things in life that can bring together and excite a global community, and food and sports are two of those things!

Beginning July 23, all eyes will be on Japan as it hosts the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games. For me, this summer’s Olympics is the perfect blend of things that I’m passionate about – there’s cycling, there’s an international governing body that oversees the games, and there’s fellowship between the United States and Japan.

Last year, as COVID-19 rattled the world economy and disrupted trade flows, agricultural trade remained mostly stable, falling only two percent during the initial wave of infections and lockdowns, before bouncing back and ending the year up 3.5 percent. But the growth in agricultural trade doesn’t mean that trade flows were insulated from the effects of the pandemic. Much of 2020 was in fact shaped by other factors. For instance, 95% of global agricultural trade growth came from China and was driven in part by non-pandemic related factors of increased feed demand, efforts to restock grain reserves, and policy factors. A recent paper by USDA’s Office of the Chief Economist, Has Global Agricultural Trade been Resilient under COVID-19? Findings from an Econometric Assessment (PDF, 1.4 MB) (Arita et al.), suggests that while agricultural trade remained stable at the aggregate level, a deeper empirical analysis reveals there were still significant disruptions due to the pandemic.

Today, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) convened a meeting with representatives of U.S. agricultural products and leadership from the United States Department of Transportation (DoT) to discuss current issues surrounding shipping U.S. agricultural exports, as well as logistical and technical concerns. Participants included a wide range of agriculture stakeholders in the livestock, grains, specialty crop, and dairy industries, as well as representatives from the shipping and value-added sector of U.S. agriculture. The discussion was led jointly by USDA Chief of Staff Katharine Ferguson and DoT Senior Advisor Carlos Monje, the key point of contact for Secretary Buttigieg on this issue.