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USDA will provide $466.5 million in FY 2024 funding to strengthen global food security through the McGovern-Dole and Food for Progress programs, Secretary Vilsack announced today.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is accepting fiscal year 2024 applications for the Food for Progress Program. This Program supports agricultural development activities in countries and emerging democracies that are committed to introducing and expanding free enterprise in the agricultural sector.

USDA and USAID will deploy $1 billion in Commodity Credit Corporation funding to purchase U.S.-grown commodities to provide emergency food assistance to people in need throughout the world.

For almost 50 years, Bangladesh required U.S. cotton be fumigated because of concerns about the boll weevil. Collaboration between USDA agencies and the Bangladesh Ministry of Agriculture resulted in amended import requirements, exempting the United States from the list of countries required to fumigate cotton upon arrival.

FAS has designated Benin, Cambodia, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Tunisia as priority countries for the Food for Progress program in FY 2024.

USDA, through its administration of the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition (McGovern-Dole) Program, is the largest global donor to school feeding efforts, providing U.S. agricultural commodities, funding, and technical assistance to reduce hunger, support nutrition, and improve literacy and primary education, especially for girls, around the world.

Looking to increase U.S. exporter presence in Southeast Asian markets, a U.S. Department of Agriculture delegation, led by USDA Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Alexis Taylor, expanded existing trade ties in Malaysia and Singapore earlier this month.

Leaders from three state agriculture departments and 29 U.S. agribusinesses and organizations will accompany U.S. Department of Agriculture Under Secretary Alexis M. Taylor on a trade mission to Southeast Asia October 30 – November 3 to expand export opportunities for U.S. food and farm products to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the world’s fourth-largest market.

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack today announced the United States is investing $455 million to strengthen global food security and international capacity-building efforts.

FAS helps minority farmers gain traction in international trade as well as growing and promoting their businesses.

FAS is working with university students in Tanzania on a pilot project to gather grassroots data on grain, oilseed, and cotton crops to help strengthen community agricultural systems and improve crop condition assessments with satellite imagery.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is accepting applications from U.S. exporters for a two-country agricultural trade mission to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Singapore on Oct. 30 – Nov. 3, 2023.