U.S. Prominence in World Agriculture Market Ebbing : Trade: In the global food arena, experts say, the country has lost its corner on technology and knowledge.

Technology has been a major reason for the United States’ success in the world agriculture market, but this country risks losing its prominence, experts said recently at a conference.

“The day has passed when American agriculture had a lock on the world marketplace for food,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter said.

He joined international food experts, scholars and businessmen in Indianapolis recently to discuss global food trends during the 1990s at a conference sponsored by the conservative think tank Hudson Institute.

The United States held 35% of the value of world trade in bulk agriculture commodities in 1988, Yeutter said, but in intermediate products such as flours and vegetable fats, the U.S. share dropped to 18%. Among consumer-oriented agriculture products, such as processed fruits, cut flowers and bakery products, American farmers have less than a 6% stake.

In the past year, Eastern Europe has begun moving toward free market systems. That won’t help American farmers, but it may be a windfall for food processors, one analyst said.

Richard Judy, a Soviet specialist at the Hudson Institute, said there will be a demand for companies involved in food processing and marketing.

One of them is Central Soya, based in Ft. Wayne, Ind. Since January, it has formed joint ventures with Hungary’s state-owned agribusiness concern to produce livestock feed and with a Yugoslav company to produce soybean concentrates used in meat processing.

Bioprocessing represents another opportunity. Genetically engineered microorganisms will be used to produce food, fuel, industrial feedstocks and commodity chemicals from corn, sugar cane and other crops, said John R. Campbell, president of Oklahoma State University.

However, such products may meet with resistance, including consumer fears.

“Technology has been one of the major reasons for the success in American agriculture,” said John Urbanchek, senior vice president for economics in the Washington office of consulting firm Hill and Knowlton Inc.

“The problem is that the contribution of current technology is being rapidly exhausted and must be replaced if the United States is to retain its prominence as an agricultural producer and exporter, and to continue to supply American consumers with high-quality, safe and reasonably priced food,” he said.