A major customer has passed on bidding for Louisiana rice this fall, causing some concern among the state’s 1,225 growers. As Gannett Louisiana reports, Sen. Mary Landrieu says in a statement that Iraq—which has up until now been a reliable customer for U.S. rice—has passed on bidding on this year’s crop three times, the last time coming on Sunday. Instead, the Iraqis have bought rice from Brazil, Uruguay and Thailand.
Thailand’s rice is generally cheaper than Louisiana’s, Landrieu’s office concedes, but South American rice is usually more expensive. Because Iraq is a large foreign market for U.S. rice growers, a sustained loss of Iraqi demand may have a grave impact on rice producers and millers in this state, Landrieu says, adding she has contacted both U.S. ambassador to Iraq Stuart Jones and Secretary of State John Kerry to ask why Iraq is bypassing American rice.
Rice is grown in 30 Louisiana parishes. Steve Linscombe, director of the LSU AgCenter Rice Research center in Crowley, says the rice yield was good this year, though prices are low. Usually, most of Louisiana’s crop is in long-grain rice, about 17% of the U.S. output, which is the rice preferred in the Middle East. This year about 65,000 acres of Louisiana’s 450,000 acres in rice was planted in medium grain. That’s because California, which usually grows more medium-grain rice, had a difficult year, Linscombe says.
