It ranks among the least-discussed divisions of USDA. However, the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) has one of agriculture's tallest tasks by linking U.S. agriculture to the world by enhancing export opportunities and strengthening global food security.
Those linkages not only involve opening doors, but untangling matters that hold up trade. That includes paperwork that delays dairy product and dairy cattle movement.
A year ago in Vietnam, I had the opportunity to visit with Wisconsin native Phil Karsting, who serves as FAS administrator. This June, I had the same privilege to spend time with Gabriel Hernandez and Eduardo Lozano, who collectively have 36 years working with FAS in Mexico. That relationship with Mexico is extremely important for dairy as it represents an interaction with our top trading partner for both dairy products and dairy cattle.
While each has their specialty and work in different locations, Hernandez and Lozano offer trade insight to all of us via this video above captured at the CIGAL Dairy Trade Show in Jalisco, Mexico, earlier this summer.
This Hoard’s Dairyman Intel article is part of an ongoing series that will highlight a Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer (DATCP) trade mission to Jalisco, Mexico. That trade mission coincided with the CIGAL Dairy Trade Show held June 13 to 17, 2016. In all, 11 companies, two educational institutions, two Wisconsin state agencies, and one publication attended the event, along with Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and DATCP Secretary of Agriculture Ben Brancel.
Click the links below to view previous reports from this trade mission:
(c) Hoard's Dairyman Intel 2016
August 1, 2016
