Level The Playing Field For U.S. Rice Producers
MOLLY BUCKLER
KATY, TEXAS
U.S. rice farmers are among the most efficient and responsible agricultural producers in the world. Yet efficiency alone cannot overcome a global market distorted by government intervention. Without stronger trade enforcement, U.S. rice production – and the rural economies built around it – will continue to erode.
That urgency was clear in early February, when producers from across rice country traveled with US Rice Producers Association to Washington to meet with officials from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and congressional offices. Their message was straightforward: American farmers are not losing because they are uncompetitive. They are losing because they are competing against foreign governments.
For decades, trade agreements have demonstrated what fair competition looks like. Agreements in North America and Central America opened important markets and delivered measurable benefits to U.S. producers. When trading partners operate under similar rules, American farmers compete successfully.
The problem is that not all competitors play by those rules. Several major rice-exporting countries rely on policies designed to guarantee farmer income and expand exports. Some governments set minimum support prices, directly purchase crops, provide income guarantees, subsidize inputs or coordinate exports. These actions encourage overproduction and allow rice to be sold internationally below its true market value, a practice commonly known as dumping.
U.S. farmers operate under a fundamentally different system. Domestic farm programs are tied to historical acreage and risk protection, not to how much rice is produced in a given year. They do not mandate production, guarantee profits or require government stockpiling.
In other words, American policy supports stability without manipulating global supply.
Meanwhile, U.S. producers face some of the world’s strictest labor, environmental and food safety requirements. Farmers must comply with water protections, conservation practices and pesticide regulations that increase production costs but protect consumers and natural resources.
Those standards are a point of pride, but they also highlight the inequity of the current global market. Some competing exporters can use chemicals not approved in the United States, lowering costs and creating food safety concerns. The result is a widening gap between the price U.S. farmers must receive to stay in business and the price set by subsidized foreign production.
The consequences are visible. Rice imports into the United States have risen dramatically since 2005, displacing domestic production equivalent to hundreds of thousands of acres. Each lost acre affects more than a farmer. It affects equipment dealers, fuel suppliers, mills, truckers, storage facilities and the small-town economies that depend on agriculture.
This is not simply an agricultural issue. It is a trade enforcement issue, and it was the focus of the February meetings in Washington. Producers asked federal officials to investigate non-market subsidies abroad and to enforce existing trade laws designed to address injury caused by unfair imports.
When foreign governments guarantee prices and manage exports, global market signals no longer reflect supply and demand. U.S. rice producers are asked to compete in a free market against state-backed competitors. No industry can sustain that imbalance indefinitely.
There are solutions. U.S. trade officials should pursue investigations where warranted and rigorously enforce antidumping and countervailing duty laws. Policymakers should also support initiatives that allow domestic growers to compete in fast-growing specialty markets, including aromatic and jasmine rice, where the United States currently holds only a small share.
U.S. rice producers are not asking for protection from competition. They are asking for competition based on market principles. A fair global marketplace would reward productivity, innovation and stewardship, qualities U.S. producers already demonstrate. Until trade rules are enforced consistently, however, the playing field will remain tilted, and the cost will be paid by U.S. farmers and rural communities. ∆
Mollie Buckler is President & CEO of US Rice Producers Association, the only national rice organization comprised of producers elected by producers, and representing producers from all six rice producing states.