Twenty-two members of the Foreign Agricultural Service returned to their home countries last week with a better awareness of Georgia‘s main agricultural exports, peanuts and poultry, following a visit with Georgia Department of Agriculture representatives to growers and producers in Adele, Stillmore and Tifton.
The FAS is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Its representatives, stationed in countries throughout the globe, promote U.S. agricultural products in those markets.
The group, which first spent two weeks in Washington for continuing education training, contacted the agriculture department in Atlanta with an interest in learning more about the state’s agricultural production, said Renée Rosenheck, the department’s international trade specialist. Agriculture is Georgia’s highest-grossing industry.
Following a tour of the state, the delegates are now better prepared and more likely to market Georgia products throughout the world, she said.
During their four-day stay, the FAS representatives visited the University of Georgia College of Agriculture‘s experimental research station in Tifton, as well as with the Tifton Peanut Co. and with Wes Shannon, a Tifton peanut grower, who hosted the group for a tour of his peanut fields.
The group also met with representatives of the Pine Creek Turf Co., which produces turf grass for golf courses and lawns. According to Ms. Rosenheck, Tifton is the number one producer of turf worldwide.
The delegates additionally visited the Crider Poultry Co.’s processing facility in Stillmore, which focuses on large fowl production.
They continued on to Florida, their only other stop in the United States, last week before returning home.
The FAS representatives hailed from 21 countries, including Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chile, China, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Croatia, Germany, Guatemala, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Ukraine, Vietnam and Yemen.
Contact Ms. Rosenheck at (404) 656-3740.