Excerpts from the report Introduction: The expansion of overseas markets by U.S. farmer marketing cooperatives is of critical importance in the 1980s because of the increasing importance to the U.S. economy of expanding agricultural exports. There are three major areas where cooperatives could expand their export potential. One involves the reordering of cooperatives‘ traditional attitudes towards exporting. Another concerns the promotion of fiscal and domestic policies by legislative means that are more favorable to agricultural exports. A third is concerned with the executive branch‘s adoption of policies in the foreign economic sphere that increase the opportunity for cooperatives to engage in exports. This paper discusses some of the problems that cooperatives face in the export field that are relevant to congressional consideration of the 1981 food and agriculture legislation.
