The appetite for Mississippi’s packaged agricultural products overseas is expected to grow along with packaged produce from other Southern states over the next decade.

This presents potentially lucrative opportunities for Mississippi’s small specialty farmers and packagers, says Jerry Hingle, executive director of the Southern United States Trade Association, a non-profit agricultural export trade development organization comprised of the Departments of Agriculture of Mississippi and 14 other states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Various geographic regions of the United States have their own agricultural trade export association.