The USDA/FAS is offering this grant to develop a framework for analyzing U.S. agri-food export potential in new markets, particularly in Africa, where goods are not currently traded.

Program Objectives and Priorities

The purpose of this study is to employ an approach to forecast US agri-food exports to new markets, especially for products for which there are no prior exports. The initial work will focus on key African markets to include Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Algeria. The share of these markets of the total agri-food exports to Africa increased by nearly 18% between 2016 and 2019, reaching almost 70% in 2019. They also accounted for about 2% of US global agri-food exports. It is expected that the researcher works with USDA/FAS team to do the following:

1. Explore and identify locations and products with significant potential opportunities for US agri-food firms, commodities, and industries using opportunity scoping tools employed by industry in their search for new markets.

2. Evaluate the market conditions in the identified locations, including consumer, competitor, infrastructure, and regulatory characteristics and how these may influence the performance of US agri-food exporters.

3. Assess the necessary configuration of US agri-food products and industry relationships to enable their successful placement in identified market segments in the selected countries.

4. Develop custom models for each country-product pair.

Anticipated likely outcomes

• FAS anticipates that this project will include a trade database and corresponding documentation. The trade forecasts and the methods employed in generating them is likely to be available as machine readable data sets along with underlying code files. FAS would support a database could be search-enabled (individual country, commodity or time period search).

• The project could result in a report describing and documenting the methods, data and results. FAS also supports data/code sharing and a report, presentations in academic and government venues and journal articles reporting the results in peer reviewed and academic

Program Objectives and Priorities

The purpose of this study is to employ an approach to forecast US agri-food exports to new markets, especially for products for which there are no prior exports. The initial work will focus on key African markets to include Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Algeria. The share of these markets of the total agri-food exports to Africa increased by nearly 18% between 2016 and 2019, reaching almost 70% in 2019. They also accounted for about 2% of US global agri-food exports. It is expected that the researcher works with USDA/FAS team to do the following:

1. Explore and identify locations and products with significant potential opportunities for US agri-food firms, commodities, and industries using opportunity scoping tools employed by industry in their search for new markets.

2. Evaluate the market conditions in the identified locations, including consumer, competitor, infrastructure, and regulatory characteristics and how these may influence the performance of US agri-food exporters.

3. Assess the necessary configuration of US agri-food products and industry relationships to enable their successful placement in identified market segments in the selected countries.

4. Develop custom models for each country-product pair.

Anticipated likely outcomes

• FAS anticipates that this project will include a trade database and corresponding documentation. The trade forecasts and the methods employed in generating them is likely to be available as machine readable data sets along with underlying code files. FAS would support a database could be search-enabled (individual country, commodity or time period search).

• The project could result in a report describing and documenting the methods, data and results. FAS also supports data/code sharing and a report, presentations in academic and government venues and journal articles reporting the results in peer reviewed and academic