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“Team Trade” (aka Gina Tumbarello and myself) do several different jobs at once for American Feed Industry Association members. Most important is answering members’ questions and helping solve their day-to-day trade snags. But another important aspect of our work is opening market access to help interested AFIA members gain more market share in a country of interest by providing a better understanding of the opportunities and challenges that exist in that market.

Let’s have a party! How about a whole Conference of the Parties (COP)?! COP, which has been gathering for 30 years, is where the formal negotiations within the United Nations (U.N.) on Climate Change take place. COP27, being held this week in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, is where I am at representing the American Feed Industry Association. Let me explain the details of this meeting and why it’s important for U.S. agriculture to participate.

As we previously reported, the American Feed Industry Association has been working to promote U.S. feed additives in the Chinese market. Over the past few months, with the use of funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Market Access Program (MAP), the AFIA has been working with a communications/media firm in China to distribute informational articles on ag-media websites and social media platforms.

Walking around Rome last week while attending the 21st annual meeting of the International Feed Industry Federation (IFIF) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), I contemplated the complexity of the city and all the history laying there, beneath or above ground, and the effort it took to build and now maintain the city.  

Recently, the American Feed Industry Association applied for and was awarded funding through the Foreign Agricultural Service’s Emerging Markets Program (EMP) to do an animal feed market assessment in Brazil, which could foster identification of opportunities for the U.S. feed industry in the Brazilian marketplace. This assessment will provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of the Brazilian market for U.S. exports of feed additives and feed ingredients, excluding raw agricultural commodities (e.g., corn, soybeans, sorghum, etc.).

Remember speed dating? Those magical minutes when you sat across from a stranger and tried to ascertain if there was a spark of emotion or maybe if it was love at first sight? Well, that is exactly what the U.S. Agriculture Export Development Council (USAEDC) Annual Attaché Seminar feels like! Just kidding, but the seminar is often compared to speed dating.

Using funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Market Access Program, the American Feed Industry Association’s international trade team works diligently to educate foreign buyers on the value of using American-made feed, feed ingredient and pet food products. One of the team’s biggest areas of focus is on China.

Hardly anything is more frustrating than ordering a coveted product, only for the shipper to keep pushing back the date of its arrival at your door. As a consumer, it can be frustrating, but for an industry, it can be concerning. Unfortunately, over the past two years since the COVID-19 outbreaks first began, supply chain issues have become the norm, but many industries are working together to address these challenges and plan for the future.