If all goes according to plan, in just a few short months, American rice growers and sellers could be exporting U.S. grown milled rice to China.
According to USA Rice, the U.S. and China have agreed to a phytosanitary protocol that will allow the import of U.S. milled rice into China.
“The challenge now is to move from agreement to shipments,” said USA Rice CEO Betsy Ward.
Now that the terms have been agreed upon, interested mills and storage facilities will have to undergo inspection by both U.S. and Chinese authorities to ensure they meet the necessary protocols before exporting their milled rice to select ports in China.
“This extraordinary agreement has been a long time coming and I commend the U.S. negotiators and USA Rice for sticking to it and getting us a phytosanitary protocol that, while more complicated and detailed than any other rice protocol in the world, is something both industries appear able to make work that will result in a new market opening up for U.S.-grown rice,” said Dow Brantley, Arkansas rice farmer and USA Rice chairman.
If there are no interruptions in the process, officials say imports of U.S. milled rice to China could begin in early spring.
“We know there is a great deal of interest in China in safe, high quality U.S. rice, and we’ve spent years working on relationships in the trade in China in preparation for the day that we can ship high quality U.S. rice to China’s consumers. That day now looks closer. We’re very enthusiastic and we appreciate the hard work put in by our government’s negotiators and our members. We’ll continue to stay on top of this until U.S. shipments arrive,” said Ward.