USDA to review 2 trade assistance requests

USDA to review 2 trade assistance requests    The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service will review a petition filed by the Spokane Hutterian Brethren in Reardan, Wash., for trade adjustment assistance for the state’s seed potato producers.
   The agency will determine within the next 40 days whether or not increasing seed potato imports contributed significantly to a decline in domestic producer prices of more than 20 percent during the marketing period of February to May 2004.
   The Foreign Agricultural Service also received a petition from the Olive Growers Council in Visalia, Calif., for trade adjustment assistance for California’s olive producers.
   The agency will determine within the next 40 days whether increasing imports of processed olives in saline solution contributed significantly to a decline in domestic producer prices of more than 20 percent during the marketing period of August 2003 to July 2004.
   If the determinations are positive in these petitions, the producers will be eligible to apply to the Farm Service Agency for help at no cost and for adjustment assistance payments.