U.S. agricultural exports face strong trade shocks, including the strength of the U.S. dollar and increased competition. This makes market diversification our top priority, said Alexis Taylor, US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary for Commerce and External Agricultural Affairs.

"Diversification is an important tool as we think about maximizing growth opportunities as well as a way to manage the risk of market contraction and general volatility in the global market that we've seen in the last few years," she said.

Taylor noted that 60% of US agricultural exports go to just four markets: China, Canada, Mexico and the EU.

Some areas where the USDA sees opportunities for new growth include Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia.

While these markets are important and USDA will continue to invest in them, new demographic trends are also emerging.

"We want to encourage market diversification and help our industry explore what other markets can be tapped into," she said, noting USDA announced in October $1.2 billion in new funding under the Regional Agricultural Promotion Program.

Some areas where the USDA sees opportunities for growth include Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia.

There is a lot of untapped market potential in Africa, especially after the 2019 ratification of the African Continental Free Trade Area.

"It makes the continent a target and facilitates trade," Taylor said. "By 2050, one in four people on the planet will live on the African continent."

Southeast Asia, on the other hand, is witnessing rapid growth in gross domestic product, an expanding middle class, urbanization and increasingly sophisticated food retailing systems.

"What we know is that if we get into these markets early, we can build lifelong consumers of American food and farm products," she said.

Some of the oldest US trade agreements are with Latin America. This region and the United States have an established and operational science, technology and trade system.

"Doubling down and investing in this area is going to be really important going forward," Taylor said. "The more competition we see from Latin America, the more opportunities there are for us," she is emphatic.

Breaking into new markets can face hurdles, including technical barriers, import licenses, facility registrations and tariff barriers, she said.

The Department of Agriculture is working to remove these barriers by committing to building foreign agricultural service offices around the world and multilateral linkages with the World Trade Organization. Marketing is about the people in the industry, their priorities and the challenges they face in entering the market, Taylor said.

"Our focus is to try to find an approach to enter these markets," she concluded.