BOISE, Idaho — An agricultural economist who has spent the better part of his career helping the U.S. wheat industry tap foreign markets has been chosen to head Idaho’s USDA Farm Service Agency.

Earlier this month, Mark Samson, 64, assumed the executive director’s position, vacated by the retirement of Dick Rush and filled temporarily by Aaron Johnson as acting executive director.

Samson had been working for U.S. Wheat Associates in Egypt when he was moved to Rotterdam, Holland, in 2012, where he managed the organization’s operations for Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

The opportunity to return to Idaho enticed him to apply for the FSA job.

Samson was born in Sand Point and moved to Pocatello, in 1955 when his father took a job as a University of Idaho Extension educator for Bannock County. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in agricultural economics from UI.

“This is very unique in that I get to come back and work with the farm industry I’m quite familiar with after being raised in Idaho, and in a whole new area in farm programs,” Samson said.

His first job was in Alaska, doing accounting for the construction company Morrison-Knudsen. He then moved to Washington, D.C., to be assistant director of Western Wheat Associates. He later returned to Morrison-Knudsen, working this time from Saudi Arabia, before he left to promote Idaho products as international trade coordinator with the Idaho Department of Commerce and Industry.

He helped start Magic Valley Foods, a Rupert-based business in 1981 that exported potato flakes. After selling his interest in the company to his partner, he joined the Idaho Wheat Commission in 1985, where he worked for more than a decade. Starting in 1996, he spent 13 years in Singapore as U.S. Wheat Associates’ vice president for Southeast Asia.

He consulted for the wheat commissions in Oregon and Washington before taking the position in Egypt.

In his current post, Samson has been impressed by the quality of his state and county staff members. He also believes his own expertise in understanding markets will help FSA to implement new farm bill programs, such as the Agricultural Risk Coverage, Price Loss Coverage and Supplemental Coverage Option programs. Enrollment for those programs will continue through late February.

For the next three months, growers may also apply to update their farm yield histories and their base acres — estimates of acreage their farms devote to specific crops for farm bill program calculations.

USDA, UI, the Idaho Barley Commission and other sponsors have scheduled workshops to educate growers about the new farm bill programs, other anticipated insurance changes and lessons learned from 2014 sprout damage to Idaho grains.

They will be conducted Dec. 1 at the Fremont County Extension Office in St. Anthony, Dec. 2 at Shilo Inn in Idaho Falls, Dec. 3 at the Red Lion in Pocatello, Dec. 4 at the Burley Inn in Burley and Dec. 5 at the Twin Falls Red Lion.

All meetings will last from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Call IBC at 208-334-2090 for advanced registration.