The value of Arkansas’ No. 1 crop fell by 15 percent in 2018 as the effects of an ongoing trade dispute between the United States and China took hold through the summer. A report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture examining crop values from August through December 2018 shows the overall value of Arkansas soybeans in the marketplace dropped from ... Read More »
Tag Archives: Marketing
Large rice stocks continue to weigh heavily on the market, prices
• By Kurt Guidry • The rice market has been quiet over the past couple of months with cash prices moving in a fairly narrow range. Some of this lackluster activity has been the normal seasonal slowdown typical of the holidays and the start of the new calendar year. But some of the quietness has been due to a lack fundamental ... Read More »
#RideWithRice
USA Rice truck tour gives away free rice cookers to help dispel fears of cooking rice. • By Vicky Boyd, Editor • USA Rice took to the road this fall to promote the virtues of U.S.-grown rice and try to demystify cooking of the grain. As part of the #RideWithRice program, USA Rice staff in a bright green decorated pick-up truck ... 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 »
Southwest Louisiana meetings provide production advice to farmers
• By Bruce Schultz • In a series of meetings in southwest Louisiana, Louisiana State University AgCenter experts offered farmers advice for growing their 2019 crop. Farmers met recently in Welsh, Abbeville, Ville Platte and Crowley only a few weeks from the start of planting season. AgCenter rice breeder Adam Famoso says a new line of Provisia rice, PVL108, in development ... Read More »
Rice should benefit from new USMCA trade agreement, says CoBank report
The recently negotiated United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, likely successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, should go a long way at eliminating incentives for Mexico to import rice from countries other than the United States. That is the conclusion contained in a recently released report from CoBank’s Knowledge Exchange Division. For years, Mexico had been the No. 1 export destination ... 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 »
A mixed market
Although it’s still too early to tell, delayed planting could shore up at least short-term prices. By Kurt Guidry — Information coming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture over the past several weeks has been mixed in terms of providing direction to the rice market. USDA’s planting intentions report at the end of March was generally viewed as positive as ... Read More »
The customer’s stomach is always right
As far as adages go, “The customer is always right” is one of the most famous; another is that “an army marches on its stomach.” I’ve created a combined version — a hybrid if you will — “The customer’s stomach is always right.” In addition to tracking rice import statistics and domestic acreage that give us a sense of the ... Read More »