Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner today announced that USDA provided more than $234 million to help market American farm products overseas in the 2007 fiscal year that ended Sept 30.
The allocations were provided under the Market Access Program (MAP) and Foreign Market Development Program (FMD), both administered by USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service.
Just over 6 million dollar of this funding was allocated to the National Potato Promotion board (USPB) in the framework odf the Market Access Program.
The MAP uses funds from USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) to share the costs of overseas marketing and promotional activities with U.S. agricultural trade organizations, state regional groups and cooperatives.
Activities conducted with MAP funding include market research, consumer promotions for retail products, and seminars to educate overseas customers.
