USDA Helps Combat Technical Trade Barriers

WASHINGTON - Jan 13/05 - SNS -- The USDA's Commodity Credit Corporation is offering technical assistance to help combat technical barriers to the export of specialty crops from the United States.

The 2005 Technical Assistance for Specialty Crops (TASC) Program covers all cultivated plants or their products, except wheat, feed grains, oilseeds, cotton, rice, peanuts, sugar, and tobacco. Project proposals from U.S. organizations need to "address sanitary, phytosanitary, and technical barriers that prohibit or threaten the export of U.S. specialty crops."

For the pulse industry, projects might include efforts to get Korea to further lower import duties on feed peas, or convince India to permanently shelve its new phytosanitary and fumigation rules for pulses.

Such projects are becoming more important for the industry to pursue because of continued forecasts of acreage growth in lentils, field peas and small caliber chickpeas in response to the crops being covered by the loan provisions of the U.S. Farm Bill.

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