Analysis: Market Access Program Works

Editor’s Note: The Market Access Program (MAP) has been targeted for a 20% cut in President Obama’s proposed budget. To enlighten our readers on the value of this program, we asked Chris Schlect, the president of the Northwest Horticultural Council, to write a commentary on the topic.

One of the successful tools that helps to ensure the continued overseas movement of our fruit is now at risk. The Market Access Program (MAP) has been targeted for a cut of 20% by President Obama’s budget for the next federal fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, 2009. This would reduce MAP, now funded at $200 million, by $40 million.

Congress now takes up the issue as it works its way through the annual budget process. Our growers and shippers hope that this money will be reinstated and MAP fully funded.

Why? MAP is a time tested public-private partnership that works.

Over the last 30 years, high-value specialty crops have become more involved with the export promotion programs administrated by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS). The direct predecessor to MAP was established in the 1985 Farm Bill.

Cost sharing arrangements between FAS and established commodity groups, such as the Washington Apple Commission or the California Table Grape Commission, were formalized. With reasonable export promotional programs backing the private sales of high-quality commodities, U.S. specialty crop exports soared.

While a program open to this nation’s agriculture from sea to sea, in the tree fruit industry of the Pacific Northwest MAP is mainly used by the Washington Apple Commission, Pear Bureau Northwest, and Northwest Cherry Growers.

MAP has allowed the traditional promotion arms of our industry to expand their efforts beyond the easy and natural focus of the domestic market. It has allowed for marketing efforts in countries or regions that would not likely see a private trader spend the money to develop long-term consumer desire for an apple, pear, or cherry from the U.S.

MAP has also served to offset some of the advantages enjoyed by European and other fruit producers who enjoy significant direct marketing help provided by their governments.

Robust export marketing programs directly help our private shippers in their sales of fruit. Without foreign markets taking significant percentages of the crop, the domestic market would be forced to absorb the entire harvest with a corresponding certain reduction in final returns to the grower. As a general rule, about 30% of the Pacific Northwest’s apples, pears, and cherries find their way each year to a satisfied consumer in a foreign land.

Because of the support offered by MAP, the Washington Apple Commission, Pear Bureau Northwest, and Northwest Cherry Growers are able to contract for professional representation in many major foreign countries. These on-site marketing experts take the pulse of the local market and help tailor and enact exciting promotional programs with a direct understanding of local culture and commercial needs.

MAP has allowed our U.S. pears to be highly visible to consumers on a consistent basis in the major cities of Mexico, now that fruit’s largest export market. It has allowed for special marketing trips to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia by industry teams led by the Washington Apple Commission. Without MAP, the sweet cherry industry would not have developed such an important new market as Korea, which now accounts for more than $11 million in annual sales.

In this time of deep concern over the domestic economy and job loss, one of the last places in the federal budget that we need to cut is MAP.

Over the next weeks and months, we will be bringing this message to Congress through the Coalition to Promote U.S. Agricultural Exports. Your own call to your local member of Congress will be enormously helpful if we are to succeed in preserving full funding for the Market Access Program.