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U.S. Farmers Growing More Rice for Japan
USAgNet - 05/01/2012
U.S. farmers plan to increase the amount of land devoted to growing short-grain rice used in Japanese cuisine this year amid worries about domestic supply following last year's earthquake-tsunami and nuclear disasters.
The USDA says farmers expected to plant 16 percent more rice this year, suggests that U.S. farmers intend to respond to growing moves by Japanese traders to secure rice on the back of recent price increases at home after the March 2011 disasters that devastated parts of the Tohoku region and contaminated
large tracts of farmland with radiation.
The report also indicate farmers may continue to expand the production of short-grain rice as Japan is expected to join the U.S.-led multilateral negotiations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement.
U.S. exports of rice to Japan are likely to surge, if Japan joins the TPP and reduces or scraps its import tariff of 778 percent on rice. This is fueling domestic concerns about the future of local rice growers.
In the United States, short-grain rice is mainly grown in California and constitutes less than 10 percent of total planting area in the state.
Of the entire U.S. rice production in 2010, long-grain rice and medium-grain rice stood at 8.3 million tons and almost 2.6 million tons, respectively. Short-grain rice, which is considered harder to grow, only accounted for a total 120,000 tons.
If all the short-grain rice is planted as planned, production this year is expected to total around 140,000 tons.
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