The National Poultry & Food Distributors Association (NPFDA) has announced that James Sumner, president of the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council, will receive NPFDA’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He will be presented the award  on January 25 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sumner has served as president of the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council since 1990.  The council, in cooperation with USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, is responsible for the worldwide promotion of U.S. poultry and egg products and maintains offices in 13 foreign countries, as well as representing the industry in various trade policy and other export-related issues.

Sumner was appointed by the past five Secretaries of Agriculture and U.S. Trade Representatives to serve on the Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee.  These committees provide industry input for various international trade issues and World Trade Organization negotiations.  In 2005, he was elected president of the International Poultry Council (IPC), an organization he helped form that represents the poultry industries of over 28 countries representing over 90 percent of the world’s poultry meat production.  He continues in that capacity as IPC’s president.