U.S. rice imports continue to increase, setting a third consecutive record and now accounting for 20% of the domestic market. In a recent Rice Yearbook, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service projects imports of 32.5 million hundredweight (rough basis) for 2019/20, up 9% from a year earlier. Driving the increase is demand for Asian aromatic varieties, primarily jasmine ... Read More »
Tag Archives: imports
Tight stocks, positive market set the tone for this season
• By Kurt Guidry • The improvement in rice prices over the last half of 2019 and the start of 2020 certainly has created a great deal more optimism in the rice industry. While it likely took longer than most would have preferred, the reduction of available supplies with the smaller 2019 crop coupled with stronger export prices being seen ... Read More »
Assuming stable U.S. rice acres for 2019, look for a repeat of the 2018-19 market
• By Kurt Guidry • The activity of the rice market has been markedly lower over the last several weeks and looks to have gone into its typical slowdown as we head toward the holiday season and the end of the year. Current reports place rice bids in Louisiana at the $17 per-barrel ($4.72 per-bushel or $10.49 per-hundredweight) level, which has ... Read More »
Would a rice by any other name still smell as sweet?
Numbers don’t lie. For the 2018-19 rice marketing year, imports are expected to comprise more than 24 percent of domestic rice use — a record, according to figures from U.S. Department of Agriculture ag economist Nathan Childs. Of that, most will be Thai jasmine. Just 20 years ago, imports made up about 8 percent of domestic use. Although some of ... Read More »
The Farm Bill gets in under the wire
After more than two years of work, discussing and debating policies and ironing out the kinks, the 2018 Farm Bill has finally been passed and signed into law, and it’s due largely in part to the perseverance and hard work of USA Rice members. You told us what you needed from the Farm Bill, and we took it to Capitol ... Read More »
Looking into the crystal ball
USDA-ERS agricultural economist Nathan Childs recently provided a glimpse into how the 2018-19 rice marketing year is expected to shape up. • By Vicky Boyd, Editor • The 2017-18 rice marketing year is just a few days shy of ending, but rice marketers are already looking to 2018-19. Globally, 2018 production and 2018-19 ending stocks are expected to only change ... Read More »
On the bubble
With tight world supplies, an interruption anywhere could likely send prices higher and help U.S. exports. Read More »
Winter hibernation
Year-end doldrums mean little potential for prices to climb until after the start of the new year. Read More »