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Montana produces and exports agricultural products worldwide. The State's
farm cash receipts totaled $2.3 billion in 2007. The State's agricultural
exports reached an estimated $723 million in 2007. Agricultural exports help
boost farm prices and income, while supporting about 7,705 jobs both on the farm
and off the farm in food processing, storage, and transportation. Exports are
important to Montana's agricultural and statewide economy. Measured as exports
divided by farm cash receipts, the State's reliance on agricultural exports was
31 percent in 2007.
Montana’s top five agricultural exports in 2007 were:
wheat and products -- $526 million
feeds and fodders -- $60 million
vegetables and preparations -- $54 million
feed grains and products -- $38 million
seeds – $17 million
World demand is increasing, but so is competition among suppliers. If
Montana's farmers, ranchers, and food processors are to compete successfully for
the export opportunities of the 21st century, they need fair trade and
more open access to growing global markets.
How Trade Agreements Benefit Montana Agriculture
One of the nation’s top wheat producers, Montana benefited from limits set
on subsidized wheat exports as a result of the Uruguay Round agreement. These
limits influenced the European Union's decision to change its Common
Agricultural Policy and ultimately lowered internal EU market prices to world
price levels. Annual EU wheat exports dropped from 22 million tons to about 14
million tons as lower market prices stimulated domestic use. Meanwhile, annual
EU wheat imports jumped from 1.5 million tons to 7 million tons as the levied
margin of protection fell. This translates to an 11-percent reduction in global
export competition and a 5.5-million-ton increase in EU wheat imports, a third
of which is supplied by the United States.
Montana, a feed corn producer, benefited under the NAFTA when Mexico
converted its import licensing system for corn to a transitional tariff-rate
quota that will remain in effect until 2008. Under this system, the volume of
U.S. corn exports to Mexico has risen over 42 percent since 1994, reaching 120
million bushels valued at $585 million in 2002.
Export Success Stories
Montana’s lumber industry benefited from a wood-frame housing construction
license signed between China’s Ministry of Construction and Tecsun (Suzhou)
Homes Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Federal Tecsun Inc., of the United States. The
license helps builders avoid the bureaucratic red tape that was needed in the
past to build wood-frame structures. The U.S. wood industry, through activities
funded by USDA’s Market Access Program, participated extensively in China’s
building code revision process over the last ten years to gain approval for
residential wood-frame construction. The new code should create additional
opportunities for exports of U.S. wood-frame construction materials.