46 



Mr. Terhaar. A bunch more. 



Again, Madam Chairman, the outreach that Secretary Espy and 

 his staff did on the Farm Service Agency, I think is something to 

 hold up as a goal for how all of the different agencies should be 

 reaching out to the people who are their client group and who use 

 their programs. 



Mrs. Thurman. ok. Mr. Notar, do you have any specific rec- 

 ommendations for getting small and new export business involved 

 in agricultural exporting? 



Mr. Notar. I guess my recommendations, Madam Chairman, 

 would reflect on our experience. We feel that cooperatives, and par- 

 ticularly starting and working at the grassroots, must work with 

 organizations such as USDA and the FAS in partnership. Another 

 example, we have started what we called in our remarks the Amer- 

 ican Cooperative Enterprise Center in Prague. 



We have involved our members financially, 10 members of NCBA 

 put up funds in addition to their dues and other support to start 

 that office. We have been working with USDA, with the U.S. AID, 

 and other Grovernment organizations, the Eximbank and others, to 

 begin to investigate and use the research and information of the 

 U.S. Grovernment and our members to start programs there. 



We have a biotechnical program started in Konin, Poland. We 

 have what we call a Pecus project which involves nutritive and feed 

 additive programs in Hungary, and we have what we are calling 

 a Coshop, an opportunity for United States cooperatives to market 

 their products in Prague. 



I think these examples emphasize that we need that partnership. 

 We, American cooperatives, need the partnership with USDA and 

 with other governmental agencies in order to start a grassroots 

 market development approach wherever we are. 



The two examples I have cited, point to a partnership approach. 

 It has had a stop and start kind of activity. But I think the real 

 emphasis here is that working as a partner with the U.S. Govern- 

 ment and our cooperative members has produced results. 



Mrs. Thurman. Do any of the other witnesses like to comment 

 on this question? 



Mr. lOlAJECK. We have been working with a number of organiza- 

 tions, with businesses, to help them put their products overseas. In 

 particular, identify preserved grains, like specialized grains that 

 would be high in oil or high in starch, we have identified markets 

 where those grains may be particularly important to a user and 

 have brought together the producer of those grains as well as the 

 users in markets such as in Japan or in Mexico. 



We have done that in barley, of barley malt, malt exports to the 

 world have been extremely low from the United States. We have 

 been working with the malt industry to help them increase their 

 exports, and have been very successful, but also thanks to the 

 United States' EEP program. So that would be two examples of 

 where we are working to get more businesses into foreign markets. 



Mrs. Thurman. Mr. Johnson. 



Mr. Johnson. No, I don't have any specific examples to cite, 

 other than I think that when we talked about the points we made, 

 developing a task force between Grovernment and the private sec- 

 tor, to look at the opportunities that are out there, I think this task 



