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FRIDGE Act introduced in U.S. House

A bill in the U.S. House would help establish new trade markets by expanding cold storage capacity.

Iowa Republican Randy Feenstra tells Brownfield, “When you start thinking of our dairy, beef, chicken, turkey, and pork, they all need refrigeration,” he said. “We cannot export to developing markets when there’s no cold chain storage.”

The Fortifying Refrigeration Infrastructure and Developing Global Exports (FRIDGE) Act would direct USDA to negotiate contracts to deliver needs assessments, training, and other technical assistance to enhance infrastructure construction in new and developing foreign markets.

Feenstra says the legislation would authorize $1 million annually from Fiscal year 2024-2028 into the Foreign Market Development (FMD) Program.

“We are so big into China, Japan, and Mexico, but this would go into South Korea, Vietnam and others,” he said. “These are the markets we want to open, and that would dramatically help all of our commodities.”

He says he expects the FRIDGE Act to receive bipartisan support. Kansas Republican Tracey Mann is co-authoring the bill.