ARLINGTON, VA – As followers of the rice industry and global markets are well aware, India has emerged as an 800-pound gorilla in the rice export business. The country, that claims to be a developing nation when it suits them, has demonstrated a meteoric rise in rice exports over the last decade. And USA Rice has catalogued an equally impressive list of unfair trade practices that are discussed on
Episode 39 of
The Rice Stuff podcast, available now.
“From guaranteeing a strong farm gate price to covering input costs for farmers, the government of India is not even close to following the World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and because of their sheer size, any move they make is distorting global rice markets,” said USA Rice Vice President of International Trade Policy Peter Bachmann who appeared on the episode. “At around 20 million metric tons exported last year, India is larger than the next four rice exporting countries combined.”
USA Rice Chair Bobby Hanks also joined the podcast to share his experience and concerns for the U.S. industry if India continues to run roughshod over the entire world.
“I think if something isn’t done, our industry is going to contract,” Hanks said. “There’s just no way to realistically compete when they have an almost 100 percent price advantage per ton over us. It’s not that they do rice better, it’s that they’re selling way below the cost of production.”
Rounding out the panel of experts on the podcast was Ben Conner, a partner at DTB AgriTrade.
“By their own admission, India is over subsidizing their rice industry and the U.S. has a very strong case to be taken to the WTO if the U.S. government would move on this,” Conner said.
The panel discussed taking a case to the WTO including a potential timeline and likely outcomes.
“It’s all pretty frustrating,” said show co-host and USA Rice Vice President of Communications and Domestic Promotion Michael Klein. “The Indian government is thumbing their nose at us and the rest of the world. They’ve gotten so big, they think they can do what they want and the rest of the world has to shut up and go along or go out of business. If there was ever a time for the WTO to actually take action and do what they were created to do, it’s now. But as we heard on the podcast it’s going to take some time, and that means more cheap Indian rice flooding the market.”
New episodes of
The Rice Stuff are published on the second and fourth Tuesday of every month and can be found on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.