The United States Department of Agriculture programme allocating funds under the Market Access Programme and the Foreign Market Development Cooperator Programme will see US$33.7m (€22.6m) made available to boost California's agricultural and food exports.
Funding has been allocated to a number of the state's trade organisations to support the international promotion of food and agricultural products, with the aim of expanding markets.
'International trade is vital to California agriculture,' said Agriculture Secretary AG Kawamura. 'This funding will assist in opening foreign markets, reducing trade barriers and increasing consumer purchases of California-grown products around the world.'
Trade organisations receiving funding include the California Table Grape Commission (US$3.6m), the California Tree Fruit Agreement (US$2.37m), Sunkist Growers (US$2.1m) and the California Agricultural Export Council (US$1.1m).
Also receiving funding are the California Cherry Advisory Board (US$701,000), the California Strawberry Commission (US$618,000), the California Pear Advisory Board (US$479,000) and the California Kiwifruit Commission (US$290,000).
Californian farmers export an average 28 per cent of products that they produce, with leading export markets including Canada (US$2.2bn), the European Union (US$2.1bn), Japan (US$957m) and China/Hong Kong (US$638m).
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