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State Agriculture Departments Have Far-Reaching Marketing Impact
Agencies are breaking down borders to help sell domestically grown crops.
BY CAROL BAREUTHER
The U.S. is the third most populated country in the world, based on 2017 United Nations statistics. It seems like there are plenty of customers to buy fresh produce, right?
However, greater agricultural efficiencies often mean America’s fruit and vegetable farmers are looking both out of state and out of the country to fully sell their crops and maximize profits. What’s more, reaching across international borders also is important to stem a shifting trade balance that now sees America as a net importer rather than exporter of fresh produce. For example, America’s fruit and vegetable exports were just over one-third of its imports ($6.3 billion versus $17.6 billion) in 2015.1 This reaching out across borders and seas is a key function of state departments of agriculture.
“It is very important to develop new markets and wider global markets in order to assure our crops are competitively sold,” says Michelle Wang, international marketing specialist for the North Carolina Depart- ment of Agriculture and Consumer Services, in Raleigh, NC. “Ninety-five percent of the world’s consumers live outside the U.S. By expanding into global markets, and therefore increasing demand, our state’s exporters will have a better chance to sell their products at better price. For example, North Carolina’s sweet potato growers have choices to sell to the domestic market or overseas markets, whether it is the UK or Italy, or Canada or Mexico.”
A GLOBAL REACH
North Carolina is a good example of how far a state’s agricultural reach can go. In 2018, the Tar Heel State’s sweet potatoes were
1 Statistics from The U.S. Trade Situation for Fruit and Vegetable Products, published by the Washington, DC-headquartered Congressional Research Service, on December 1, 2016.
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