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an outstanding reputation overseas. Because of this, the official representatives of U.S. 

 agriculture overseas, the FAS agricultural attaches, have always enjoyed easy access to 

 the highest levels of government whether in developed countries or in developing 

 countries. It is a level of access that most in the State Department and the Foreign 

 Commercial Service have often envied, and sometimes stifled. In a number of cases 

 where the U.S. was establishing or reestablishing diplomatic relations, it was the FAS 

 attaches working with the U.S. private sector that helped provide the entree for those 

 contacts. 



Most of those agricultural attaches, backed by the FAS home office, have been 

 extremely strong advocates of U.S. agricultural export concerns to the local 

 governments or importing concerns. They have a heavy array of weapons in their 

 arsenal - food aid, export credits, commodity buydowns, technology transfer, and 

 strong ties to the U.S. industries with whom they share mutual goals. In some cases, 

 the rest of the U.S. government representatives abroad are strong co-advocates for U.S. 

 agricultural exports; but, in many cases, they are impediments or at best uninterested. 

 We need to ensure that FAS, working closely with USTR and the State Department and 

 U.S. embassies, can continue and enhance its advocacy for market access and sales. 



Point five reads "Measure Performance: Develop and implement performance 

 measures to guide decisions and improve strategic focus". This is truthfully one that 

 FAS has struggled with. FAS has produced a number of success stories, as have the 

 Market Development Cooperators and the private companies participating in export 

 programs and exporting U.S. bulk or value-added products. Certainly, the overall 

 statistics seem to speak for themselves - $42 billion in overall agricultural exports in 

 1992, and a positive trade balance of $13 billion. Yet this does not seem to quiet the 

 detractors of the FAS-administered programs. So far as I know, it is the most audited, 

 increasingly most regulated and often most criticized set of programs around -- and 

 often the most successful. 



Mr. Chairman, I would submit that the FAS inability to develop a highly-structured 

 "comprehensive strategic plan" for U.S. agricultural exports is in some respects the 

 nature of the business. While there is clearly a need for an overall set of objectives, 

 there is also a need for flexibility. Successful exports are ones that respond to a 

 highly dynamic marketplace and the needs of the customers. If there is a government 

 strategic plan that has ever done this, I have not yet seen it. Instead, the successful 

 government export assistance program is one that can respond quickly and adequately 

 to the ever-changing opportunities identified by the customer overseas and an agile 

 and competitive U.S. private sector. The best plan is the compilation of those 

 individual front-line company plans to export their products. 



Point six reads "Reduce Export Controls: Reduce export controls and other 

 government-imposed obstacles to exports, consistent with US national security, foreign 

 policy, and health and safety interests". Agricultural exports certainly face different 



