The U.S. Potato Board Receives $5 Million In Funding To Promote Potatoes

The United States Potato Board (USPB) received an allocation of $4,998,892 in program year 2015 Market Access Program (MAP) funds from the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) at USDA. These funds will be used by the USPB to promote frozen, dehydrated, chip stock, table stock and seed potatoes in more than 25 countries around the world.

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These promotions will be directed at foodservice, ingredient, retail and consumer sectors in the targeted markets, mainly in Asia and Latin America. MAP funds will more than double the $4 million in USPB funds applied to the international marketing programs. The reach and impact of the MAP and USPB dollars will be further expanded by roughly $1.5 million in Quality Samples Program (QSP), Emerging Market Program (EMP), and Technical Assistance for Specialty Crop (TASC) funds which the USPB staff has obtained from FAS.

For the recently completed July 2013 to June 2014 marketing year, the USPB used a similar combination of funds to help drive U.S. potato exports to a record value of $1.8 billion on record volume of 3,206,848 metric tons (MT), fresh weight equivalent (FWE). The U.S. potato industry faces a number of challenges in the international market place in the coming year. These include a strengthening dollar, increased competition from Europe and elsewhere, and the ongoing problems at ports on the West Coast.

The MAP and other export promotion funds are obtained by the USPB marketing department staff through the submission of an extensive and comprehensive application known as the Unified Export Strategy (UES). This 300-plus page plan of the strategies, market assessments, constraints, performance measures and activities is evaluated by FAS, along with analysis of past performance and other factors, to determine the ranking of each applicant in this competitive process.

For more information, go to www.uspotatoes.com.

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Source: USPB news release

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Avatar for Southern Tier Farmer Southern Tier Farmer says:

You mean the potato board was given 5 million in other peoples money to promote their own product and profit from it. Instead it should have been the potato board took out a loan for 5 million to promote potatoes overseas and because they did such a great job and potato growers/exporters profited they are able to pay back the loan. This would be better than the welfare they just received. Just saying, but then I am just a tiny farmer making do with what I earn from what I grow.

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