July 17, 2024 
McLean, Virginia – July 10-11, 2024 – The U.S. Agricultural Export Development Council (USAEDC) held its annual Attaché Seminar on July 10 and 11 last week. It brought together over 400 participants including USAEDC members, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA FAS) staff, and the FAS attachés stationed around the world. The meeting featured a lineup of experts in international trade for a series of timely presentations and panels.
USAEDC, a trade association founded in 1983, comprises members who represent the spectrum of U.S. agricultural products sold globally. Member organizations held hundreds of meetings with foreign attachés to discuss foreign market development strategies, market access, and trade and regulatory barriers to U.S. agricultural goods internationally.
“We were excited to come together in the wake of the opportunities created by the new RAPP program,” said Lorena Alfaro, Executive Director of USAEDC. “The rich idea-sharing at this meeting is invaluable for our members, as are the discussions with our partners at FAS about expanding and diversifying markets for U.S. agriculture globally.”
The theme of this year’s Attaché Seminar was “Reflecting on a World in Transition.” The keynote at the General Session on Thursday, demographer, futurist, and author Kenneth W. Gronbach, captured that theme with an exploration on the effects of demographic change on markets and labor pools in the US and abroad.
In the General Session on Thursday, USDA FAS members heard from Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Alexis Taylor and FAS Administrator Daniel Whitley. Their remarks highlighted the USDA’s new Regional Agricultural Promotion Program (RAPP) funding, a total of $1.2 billion for export promotion and foreign market development for U.S. food and agricultural products, which has brought an additional $300 million to the USAEDC community so far. “This is a celebration,” said Whitley. “The RAPP program is a realization of something we’ve long asked for: support to export and market our products abroad.”
The lineup of sessions on Thursday included a panel on Food as Medicine with Mollie Van Lieu, VP of Nutrition & Health at the International Fresh Produce Association and Mandy Katz, Director of Healthy Living at Giant Foods/Ahold-Delhaize, moderated by Beth Johnson, CEO and Founder of Food Directions. Other session topics included Cultivating Cuisine: The Intersection of Culture and American Agriculture, Crafting Engaging Activities Across Regions, Building Underdeveloped Markets in RAPP Regions, and more.
Greg Tyler, USAEDC Board Chair and the President and CEO of the USA Poultry and Egg Export Council said, “One of the things I like best about the USAEDC conference is the conversations we have. Great ideas that you can carry back to your offices and use.”
USAEDC holds two meetings each year to bring together imembers of the USDA FAS-USAEDC partnership. Its Annual Conference will take place in Baltimore from November 20–24, 2024. For more information about that conference and other USAEDC events, visit usaedc.org/events.