U.S., China to sign rice protocol agreement

Officials from the United States and China will sign a phyto-sanitary protocol during the week of Sept. 21, when Chinese President Xi Jinping leads a delegation on an official visit to Washington, D.C.

Culminating an effort that reaches back more than 15 years, the U.S. Rice Producers Association (USRPA) has been pushing to open the Chinese market to U.S. rice.

In those intervening ten years, China has switched from being a rice exporter to importing two million tons or more of long grain rice. Vietnam has been the origin of most of the Chinese imports, due to a combination of price, proximity, and quality. The U.S. is not allowed to ship to China because rice was not included in the original negotiations that resulted in the sale of millions of tons of soybeans and cotton and other grains.

USRPA applied for funding from USDA/FAS under their Emerging Markets Program to travel to China to determine if there would be demand for U.S. long grain milled rice should it ever be permitted. Over the years, consumer preferences were recorded and analyzed and concluded that rice milled in the U.S. would be considered a preferred product deserving of a premium price in the opinion of the growing consumer class in China.

The U.S. Rice Producers Association, representing rice producers in Arkansas, California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas, is the only national rice producers’ organization comprised by producers, elected by producers and representing producers in all six rice-producing states.