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-- Aside from the merger of FAS and the former OICD, these program reviews will 

 be our first formal efforts at reinventing government with respect to our export mission. The 

 Department will be convening small task forces to take a top-to-bottom look at these i = 

 programs in the coming months. We will seek input from farmers, program participants, 

 other agencies, and of course, the Congress. 



5. The Trade Policy Coordinating Committee (TPCC) and USDA Export and 

 Promotion Programs . 



As your invitation indicated, we had a Long-Term Agricultural Trade Strategy 

 (LATS) long before the TPCC was inaugurated. The strategy as developed has been a policy 

 umbrella under which we have operated for a number of years. 



Many of the initiatives I have discussed here today derive from the evolution of our 

 strategy under the guidance of Secretary Espy and Under Secretary Moos. Agriculture is an 

 active participant in the TPCC, and in this process we are anxious to demonstrate the value 

 of each of the exjxjrt programs to not only increase exports, but to build and maintain a 

 strong agricultural economy. 



American agriculture is doing its share to help the U.S. economy. Our agricultural 

 exports create more than half a million off- farm jobs in financing, storage, packaging, 

 processing, merchandising and shipment. Many of these jobs are in rural America and 

 therefore contribute to the Administrations's goal of enhancing rural community and 

 economic development. Approximately 300,000 jobs are created on the farm to produce 

 food for export. 



At the farm level, agricultural exports provide producers with an expanded market 



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