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USDA will provide $466.5 million in FY 2024 funding to strengthen global food security through the McGovern-Dole and Food for Progress programs, Secretary Vilsack announced today.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is accepting fiscal year 2024 applications for the Food for Progress Program. This Program supports agricultural development activities in countries and emerging democracies that are committed to introducing and expanding free enterprise in the agricultural sector.

USDA and USAID will deploy $1 billion in Commodity Credit Corporation funding to purchase U.S.-grown commodities to provide emergency food assistance to people in need throughout the world.

For almost 50 years, Bangladesh required U.S. cotton be fumigated because of concerns about the boll weevil. Collaboration between USDA agencies and the Bangladesh Ministry of Agriculture resulted in amended import requirements, exempting the United States from the list of countries required to fumigate cotton upon arrival.

FAS has designated Benin, Cambodia, Madagascar, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and Tunisia as priority countries for the Food for Progress program in FY 2024.

USDA, through its administration of the McGovern-Dole International Food for Education and Child Nutrition (McGovern-Dole) Program, is the largest global donor to school feeding efforts, providing U.S. agricultural commodities, funding, and technical assistance to reduce hunger, support nutrition, and improve literacy and primary education, especially for girls, around the world.

Agriculture Secretary Vilsack today announced the United States is investing $455 million to strengthen global food security and international capacity-building efforts.

FAS helps minority farmers gain traction in international trade as well as growing and promoting their businesses.

FAS is working with university students in Tanzania on a pilot project to gather grassroots data on grain, oilseed, and cotton crops to help strengthen community agricultural systems and improve crop condition assessments with satellite imagery.

USDA's Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs Alexis Taylor arrived in Panama City today to launch an agribusiness trade mission. Taylor and a delegation of representatives from agribusiness and farm organizations and state departments of agriculture look to develop stronger ties and build economic partnerships between the United States and Panama and markets throughout CAFTA-DR region.