From Understanding Government’s “Public Service Announcement” series about the life, work, and career highlights of federal government employees.

By Norman Kelley

Given the all-too-common belief that government can’t do anything right, most Americans may be surprised at how well the U.S. Department of Agriculture has helped exporters gain access to foreign markets.

James Higgiston, Acting Deputy Director of the Office of Country and Regional Affairs (OCRA), a subdivision of the Foreign Agriculture Service (FAS), has spent half of his career overseas, in countries such as Turkey and in the Central Asian region of the former Soviet Union, helping break down trade barriers and making sure that American agriculture can finds its way into international markets.

“A lot of the information we gather,” he told Understanding Government, “is use to brief the Secretary or brief anyone from the administrator on up if they are having a meeting or going overseas. When they get into those meetings, if there’s an issue they want to raise bilaterally, we have the information to inform them.”

With 600 hundred workers in Washington, FAS administers twelve programs as part of its mandate, and consults American farmers and agriculture companies about overseas market opportunities. It also develops and tracks strategies for U.S. international agricultural policies and interests.

“Hard to believe it’s been twenty-five years,” says Higgiston wistfully. A native of Brooklyn, NY, he began at USDA in October 1984. “Before that, I was in graduate school in [Washington] and worked on the Hill a little bit, worked at DoD, and prior to that I was up in New York City.”

In 1978, Higgiston received his B.A. degree from Hunter College, majoring in Russian Area Studies. At Georgetown University his earned his Master’s in International Trade and Finance, graduating in 1983.

Like most young people after college, he tried out various other vocations, such as publishing in New York. After graduating from Georgetown’s Master’s program in Foreign Service, he worked at the Smithsonian and for the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade as an intern.

Although Higgiston works at USDA, not the State Department, his work is really that of a foreign service officer, as he has spent half his career overseas representing USDA. Along the way, he’s had to learn farming and food issues on the job. “It’s been challenging . . . just picking up all the agriculture that I needed to know for the position.”

Working as a Agricultural Counselor from 2002 to 2006 in Turkey, Higgiston “covered everything in Turkey, whether it was assistance, trade policy, helping exporters, meeting with exporters, or working on food aid. Higgiston and FAS colleagues monitored Central Asia as well, often traveling to the former Soviet Union and its allies.

“Turkey was fabulous,” he says. “Just living there was fabulous, but the issues were also very interesting. There was a big issue, a problem getting [U.S.-produced] rice into the country because the Turkish government would change regulations.”

Higgiston and team interacted with the local Turkish agricultural concerns that wanted to bring in rice because they had a milling industry, and assisted US rice producers who wanted to break into the restricted Turkish market.

“We were also working on putting together a WTO case against the Turks to convince them to open the market and not put in constraints.”

Higgiston’s duties as a FAS officer weren’t solely restricted to agricultural commodity issues. While in Turkey he also had to deal with the 2005- 2006 Avian influenza outbreak.

“Avian influenza had been starting out in Southeast Asia, and we saw it moving westward,” Higgiston recalls. But as the flu moved into Turkey, Higgiston and his colleagues found working with the Turkish government a challenge. The Turkish government “was not very communicative,” according to Higgiston.

Rather than being forthright and admitting to a lack of preparedness, the Turks had a tendency to tell FAS what they thought that Higgiston and his colleagues wanted to hear: the situation was under control. However, he and teammates knew better after being in the country for awhile, having engaged with their Turkish counterparts.

They sought a “second opinion” by driving to the Turkish west coast (the first case of Avian flu occurred in an eastern province of Turkey), meeting five or six Turkish poultry industry representatives.

From the Turkish reps, Higgiston learned that the Turkish poultry industry had a list of steps to confront a potential flu outbreak, which included offering on-staff veterinary services to smaller poultry farmers. However, by the time Higgleston had returned to Ankara, the influenza had hit the area he had just left.

“So, we had all the contacts and we knew what was going on,” he says, and they were able to keep Washington and concerned parties informed as the disease made it way across Europe. “We were able to put our resources into that, get the information, and be right on top of an issue that was very important.”

Higgiston expressed satisfaction in being of service to smaller and medium-sized US exporters: “They were the ones we were really working with a lot.”

Because of FAS’s immediate on-the-ground knowledge of a host country’s market conditions and legal intricacies, they were able to brief American exporters on the things they needed to know: a country’s distribution network; the officials who needed to be approached; and, in the case of Turkey, where large supermarkets were located (on its west coast) if processed foods were being exported there.

Higgston’s other duties in Turkey included briefing the US ambassador, meeting with local officials, engaging parliamentary/legislative officials and offering seminars on pertinent issues.

One of his most poignant experiences concerned a non-agricultural matter. A NGO needed assistance in “providing old food aid program proceeds” to an orphanage for epileptics in Uzbekistan. “If you were institutionalized in the former Soviet Union,” he explains, “it was basically a death sentence. The children were sent there to live out their lives.”

Higgiston was able to convince the Uzbek government to take some of the proceeds, a very small amount of $15 – $20,000, from an old food program, which helped in rehabilitating the kitchen, bathroom, and class room at the orphanage.

“All these kids were being mainstreamed, and they had never had a chance to do that,” he reminisces. “So, for me, personally, that was something I had an impact on.”

With its overseas food and agricultural programs, some of FAS’s activities overlap with those of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This has caused some interagency frictions – some outside critics feel that FAS is moving beyond its designated mission of providing information and marketing assistance, instead delving into foreign policy, especially regarding agricultural development efforts in Afghanistan.

Although Higgiston works in the OCRA division of FAS, he has no policy knowledge or responsibility for FAS’s alleged expanding foreign policy role.

“I’m not really involved in that policy aspect,” says Higgiston.

However, he notes that in the past, FAS has faced responsibilities that don’t necessarily fit the agency’s stated mission to the letter. When the Soviet Union collapsed, for example, he was recalled to that region to help bring in private sector individuals who could help set up a distribution network in Russia’s emerging free-market system.

“We have a role and I think we can draw on certain expertise in the department,” he says, “and I think it is important. I’m not involved in the debate [regarding FAS and USAID], but I think they complement each other.”

He finds the reported intra-agency conflict between the two agencies as ‘not very significant.”

As a twenty-five year veteran of the USDA, however, what he does find significant is being a public servant.

“I know that government gets criticized a lot,” he says, but that’s why I tell my staff – both overseas and when I’m here –that we have to go the extra yard.”

When he met with U.S. exporters overseas, he told them what the US government could and could not do for them.

“The outreach is very important,” he adds. “A lot of people, especially some of the smaller companies venturing into areas they have never been before, are really appreciative of being able to sit down with you and go over with what’s going on.”

“I really have enjoyed it,” says Higgiston of his government service, recalling being able to travel in a short period more so than his father ever travelled in his entire life. “It’s been great and I’ll be sorry when I have to leave.”

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