Critical Need to Support Increased MAP Funding in Next Farm Bill

It’s hard to believe, but the current Farm Bill expires in 2023. This means that work on the next Farm Bill should start around now. Among the different priorities that we will be focusing on as drafting begins and allocations are decided, is the continued funding for agricultural export market development. The primary vehicles that fund our global export development programs, the Market Access Program (MAP), the Foreign Market Development (FMD) program, and the Emerging Market Program (EMP), are all funded through the Farm Bill. It is critical that we begin to outline our priorities and make them known through our industry and the various advocacy coalitions that we form a part of as we rely on this funding for our global competitiveness. One particular area of focus going into the next Farm Bill deliberations will be the funding of MAP. MAP has been stagnant at a level of $200 million since 2006. Since that time, various external and internal factors have shrunk the actual MAP pot of funding that USDBC and almost 100 other agricultural trade associations rely on. These include; sequestration (federal funding cuts), administration (USDA/FAS uses a percentage of MAP funding to administer the program), and inflation. Additionally, the number of MAP program participants continues to increase, leaving less money for more participants. The end result is that the funding of $200 million in actual dollars ends up being closer to $130 million once indexed for inflation and considering the other factors.

The MAP, FMD, and EMP programs are flagship public/private partnerships without equal. All program participants provide a cost-share to match government grant funding. The world continues to change and morph, our ability to remain competitive in agricultural trade is more critical than ever. We know that several of our global competitors receive a significantly larger amount of funding for similar work. These programs are absolutely critical to USDBC and have our unconditional support. We will be expressing this in the coming months and years.

Please see chart below for real time data.

Real MAP funding is not what it seems. Chart provided by FAS.