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With the reduction in the estimated agricultural trade deficit that was recently announced, we sat down with Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Luke Lindberg to learn what factors were impacting this reduction.
Under Secretary Lindberg said, “You know, we’ve had really some significant progress across not only a number of different markets around the world, where we’ve had historic years or record-breaking opportunities, but also in different product categories. Our dairy exports were up 15% last year, second-best year ever.”
“Butter and cheese is sort of having a moment, as well as other protein-based dairy products. But then on top of that, ethanol and corn both had record-breaking years last year. So it’s really been across the board. Markets like Mexico, that have historically been great, had even better years. We saw record years in the European Union, in the United Kingdom, in South Korea. So we’re going through the process of diversifying both products that we’re exporting and markets into which we’re exporting,” said Under Secretary Lindberg.
Audio Reporting by Dale Sandlin for Southeast AgNet.