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Abstract
Foreign markets can provide new economic
opportunities for agricultural producers. However,
the costs of accessing those markets are beyond the
capacity of many independent agents, while the
benefits are probably too narrow to suggest a federal
role. Because of environmental and historical
differences, states have particular interests in specific
commodities (e.g., Washington’s apples, Florida’s
oranges, and Wisconsin’s cheese). Thus, when
independent agents lack capacity due to their small
scale, it falls to the state to provide market research,
technical support, and promotional activities to
establish its producers in a foreign market. While the
costs of such services are probably not warranted from
the perspective of a single producer, they may be
negligible compared to the long term gains to that
state economy from dynamic trade relations.