international

The Foreign Agricultural Service office in San Jose broke ground on its own People’s Garden in Fall 2009. Ever since that day our embassy employees and their families, as well as members of the local community, have learned about the benefits of eating fresh, healthy foods.

Patagonia, Chile is known for its spectacular views, amazing scenery and great fly fishing.  The area attracts 2 million tourists annually. But only 20 percent of Chile’s natural resources are protected.  Chilean stakeholders recently partnered with the U.S. Forest Service and the State Department to develop tourism in concert with land management practices.

The Agricultural Trade Office in St. Petersburg, Russia joined U.S. cooperators and the U.S. Consulate to host the first-ever American pavilion at the St. Petersburg Christmas Fair, which runs from Dec. 21, 2011 to Jan. 14, 2012. The pavilion showcases American cuisine including New York cheesecakes, Kona coffee, California almonds and American holiday treats.

Hawaii Exports International (HEI) of Honolulu has successfully introduced its award-winning Kona and Ka’u coffees to the Canadian market with the support of USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) office in Canada, the FAS-funded Western U.S. Agricultural Trade Association (WUSATA), and the Hawaii Department of Agriculture (HDOA).

There are many things that Americans are known for, including dreaming big, working hard to turn those dreams into a reality, and reaching out to help others who are also trying to make their dreams come true. During his trip to Hanoi, Vietnam, earlier this week, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack—whose own personal story and history of public service epitomizes these very characteristics—challenged a packed auditorium of more than 600 students and faculty at the Hanoi University of Agriculture (HUA) to be the generation whose dreams transform their communities, their country and their world.

A recent Food for Progress (FFP) project in Bangladesh shows how a small effort can have a big impact on a community. The Rural Enterprise for Alleviating Poverty project is managed by Winrock International with the help of USDA and the Ministry of Fisheries in Bangladesh. The goal of this project was to help local farmers boost their incomes by adding prawns and vegetables into their existing farming efforts.

For the past two years, our Agricultural Trade Office (ATO) in Shanghai, China has built a partnership with FruitDay.com, an online produce company that has thrived by harnessing the impressive power of internet and TV retailing to reach Chinese consumers.

This week, I am taking 21 representatives of foreign embassies in our nation’s capital to Washington state and Oregon for the Foreign Agricultural Service’s 26^th annual orientation tour. These representatives are from Angola, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Egypt, Fiji, France, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, and Switzerland. Their expertise ranges from agricultural to environmental affairs and economic to commercial affairs.

In 2009, Eunice Mwongera decided to expand Hillside Green Growers and Exporters Company, her family-owned fruit and vegetable business. A graduate of Nairobi University and former finance officer at the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture, Mwongera, applied for the USDA Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology (Borlaug) Fellowship Program. Not long after, she was paired with a mentor at Southern University Agricultural Research and Extension Center for six weeks to learn U.S. best practices in agribusiness development and management. The fellowship was part of a program that provided U.S.-based agribusiness and collaborative research training to African women.

The “dry corridor” in Guatemala suffers from annual drought and food shortages that affect the food security and incomes of people in the region. Last year was worse than most—drought followed by devastating floods caused by tropical storms and rain that destroyed crops, increasing food insecurity and child malnutrition.