MSGA’s Executive Vice President, Errol Rice, testifies on U.S. exports in Washington, D.C.

MSGA’s Executive Vice President, Errol Rice, testifies on U.S. exports in Washington, D.C.

On Thursday, April 29, 2010, Errol Rice, the Executive Vice President of the Montana Stockgrowers Association, testified in front of the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness in Washington, D.C. on the topic of “Doubling U.S. Exports: Are U.S. Sea Ports Ready for the Challenge?”Rice’s Testimony emphasized the importance of improvign the country’s seaport infrastructure as part of creating an efficient, techologically advanced port-to-market distribution systems for U.S. agricultural exports. Central to Rice’s testimony was the importance of exports to Montana’s family ranches.”There was a time when the largest part of ranchings economic activity was domestic, but our future depends on our ability to be globally competitive,” Rice said. “Ranchers must have access to the additional demand for beef from consumers that live outside the U.S. 95 percent of the worlds population lives outside the borders of the U.S. The unfolding global landscape, in its breadth and complexity, is creating unprecedented challenges for U.S. beef exports.”