With U.S. farm exports expected to reach a record $62 billion this year, the government's chief agricultural trade negotiator has started a four-day swing through Minnesota farm country to enlist support for more trade liberalization.

That's not a tough sell in most parts of the state, where farmers produce surplus commodities that must find buyers abroad to keep prices from collapsing.

The exception, however, is in western Minnesota where sugar beet farmers are threatened by trade agreements that may open the floodgates for Latin American sugar. Other Minnesota farmers fear that disparities in government programs may flood their markets with Canadian wheat, barley, cattle and hogs.

Ambassador Allen Johnson, who arrived in St. Paul on Thursday, is scheduled to meet with dairy interests in southeastern Minnesota today and with pork producers and soybean interests on Saturday and Sunday. Soybeans and pork are among commodity groups that stand to gain export markets through World Trade Organization reforms while dairy stands to gain in time, though it may face short-term competition from New Zealand and Australia.

U.S. agriculture currently is protected from imports by tariffs that average 12 percent of the commodities' value, Johnson said. The world's average agricultural tariffs are 62 percent.

The framework for new WTO talks agreed to by trade ministers in July calls for leveling these trade barriers and eliminating the worst of the trade-distorting practices, Johnson said.

Trade negotiations are to begin next year but could take three to five years to complete. Among issues scheduled for the talks are eliminating export subsidies and domestic farm programs that can distort trade, as well as tariff barriers and nontariff barriers that include health and safety issues not supported by science.

The push on trade-related issues came a day after William Hawks, U.S. undersecretary of agriculture, ran into resistance in the heart of sugar country Wednesday while campaigning for the Bush-Cheney ticket at Moorhead.

The Central America Free Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, could flood the U.S. with imported sugar when combined with the North American Free Trade Agreement, which includes Mexico, representatives of the sugar industry said.

That threatens an industry that produces about $3 billion in economic benefit to Minnesota and North Dakota, 32,000 jobs in the two states, and $750 million in farm investments in sugar beet co-op plants and equipment, based on economic studies at North Dakota State University.

The Minnesota dairy industry is slightly larger — with $3.6 billion in annual economic impact — and accounts for about 26,000 Minnesota jobs, according to data supplied by the National Milk Producers Federation.

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