what kind of agricultural products the US imported? Fruits and vegetables?
This trend of food imports will turn into a tidal wave over the next ten years as the Free Trade Agreement with Australia Bush recently signed goes into effect. The cost of farm production in Australia is far below that of American farms. Australian farms typically measure miles on each side - the economies of scale are mind boggling. It's a nation the same size as America with 95% fewer people.
The biggest value market is fresh food. The world now eats from an huge fleet of 747s which move fresh food around the globe. Everything is now in season. Few recall that prior to electric lights, eggs were not available in the Winter months as hens did not lay when days were short.
From the Wall Street Journal article:
U.S. agricultural exports have been stagnant for eight years in part because new farm powers are emerging around the world in places where land is cheaper and governments are pumping money into infrastructure such as roads and ports. Brazilian soybean farmers are winning customers away from the U.S., for example, and Russia has transformed itself from a huge customer of U.S. wheat into a wheat-exporting rival. India, which once depended on American aid to fight famine, is an emerging food exporter. China, long a big buyer of U.S. crops, is pushing for food self-sufficiency. Canada is a major exporter of hogs and beef to the U.S. The upshot: The U.S., which controlled half of the world's trade in wheat in the 1980s, now has just one-quarter of the world market.
Many supermarket executives learned about importing during the 1990s, when they turned to Chile, Mexico and Argentina for grapes, tomatoes, asparagus and apples to keep their aisles stocked with fresh produce through the dead of the U.S. winter. Now retail executives are trying their hand at more exotic fare, such as Irish marmalade, Scottish cookies and Japanese horseradish powder.
According to the USDA, 78% of the fish and shellfish consumed in the U.S. are imported, up 10 percentage points from 2000. Imported wine had 27% of the U.S. market last year compared with 21% in 2000. Everything from lamb and avocados to spices, beer, flowers and bell peppers increasingly is imported.
"Shoppers want more and more choices," said Monte Wiese, president of the specialty-foods unit of Hy-Vee Inc., a Midwest supermarket chain.
Hy-Vee is putting olive bars in its stores. As at a salad bar, shoppers can pick from 14 varieties of fresh olives from Greece, Italy and Turkey. Hy-Vee is also importing, among other things, canned coconut milk, cheese from Switzerland and canned artichoke hearts from Spain.
Even U.S. farmers are getting into the act. Sunkist Growers Inc., a citrus cooperative owned by growers in California and Arizona, is making plans to import navel oranges from South Africa for sale under its brand when U.S. oranges are out of season. "We either provide consumers with what they want or we are out of the market," said Jeffrey Gargiulo, Sunkist chief executive.
The growing immigrant population is creating demand for imported foods. General Mills Inc., for example, is beginning to import from India the frozen flat breads roti and nan. U.S. food companies are also using more foreign ingredients in their products. Much of the Pepsi-Cola sold in the U.S. is made with concentrate imported from places such as Ireland, where PepsiCo Inc. says manufacturing costs are cheaper than in the U.S.
About 20% of the beef used by McDonald's Corp. restaurants in the U.S. now is from foreign cattle. A McDonald's spokeswoman said a shortage of lean beef in the U.S. is forcing the company's hamburger suppliers to turn to cattle from Australia and New Zealand.
The import boom is causing a backlash among some U.S. agricultural groups, such as Florida produce farmers. These groups successfully lobbied Congress for a country-of-origin regulation requiring supermarkets to label the birthplace of produce and meat, among other commodities. Opposition from retailers, however, has stalled implementation of the labels. |
