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emphasis has to move toward retraining in a very rigorous way for 

 the people in place. FAS has made the argument over the years 

 that agricultural economists were very flexible, bright staff to re- 

 cruit, that they could be trained to do all sorts of different things. 

 I, myself, am an economist, so I am sympathetic to that argument. 

 And I really think that given the fact that recruitment, replace- 

 ment and recruitment is going to be — represent relatively few peo- 

 ple, just changing the recruitment profile won't have a dramatic 

 impact in the short run. 



I think FAS really needs to think in terms of a very concerted 

 effort on marketing management to sort of change the capabilities 

 of its staff. 



Mr. Penny. And how about the rotation policies? Do they need 

 to be addressed? 



Mr. Mendelowitz. I think within the Foreign Service rules, I 

 think there is a lot of flexibility in terms of moving folks around. 

 If you are in the Foreign Service, one of the commitments you 

 make is you make a commitment to serve — to be ready and willing 

 to serve in any location. So I think the issue is not so much restric- 

 tions on the ability to move Foreign Service officers around. I think 

 the real problem has been thinking strategically about optimal lo- 

 cation for these folks, and, second, the problem is dealing with the 

 State Department, quite honestly. 



All the non-State Department Foreign Services have to work 

 with the State Department in getting approval for shifting their re- 

 sources around. That is no small undertaking. 



My understanding is FAS, the Foreign Agricultural Service, all 

 the other folks overseas, have great difficulty renegotiating deploy- 

 ment of their Foreign Service folks overseas with the State Depart- 

 ment. 



Mr. Penny. And what about the potential for technology? Instead 

 of moving people around, is there some potential that we can use 

 that technology to provide some of the information we need in cer- 

 tain countries? 



Mr. Mendelowitz. There is no question that modern information 

 technology should be a boon to providing timely information about 

 market opportunities, agents, distributors and so on. I know that 

 FAS has made some movement in this direction, to provide auto- 

 mated — I think they can do it in a way that is useful to the trade, 

 if it is provided via modern computerized communications systems. 



Mr. Penny. Thank you. Mr. Allard, then Mr. Stenholm then Mr. 

 Barlow. 



Mr. Allard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want to thank 

 the panel for being with us this morning. And I have a few ques- 

 tions I would like to initially address to the Department of Agri- 

 culture and Mr. Goldthwait. 



With the 1990 farm bill, you were required to prepare a long- 

 term trade strategy periodically. As I look at what is happening in 

 the Department of Agriculture, you look basically in terms of a 

 long-term trade strategy as it applies strictly to the USDA. You 

 don't look at the total market and sort of leave out the private sec- 

 tor. 



Do you think that — and actually we will get into that agricul- 

 tural exports, private sector is a big share of what we do 



