Dominican rice millers provide input on the trade situation in their country
Jan 13, 2023
SANTO DOMINGO, DOMINICAN REPUBLIC -- Leadership from the USA Rice Council and the USA Rice International Promotion Committee came here this week for the International Promotion Planning Conference, to develop a proposed budget for USA Rice’s 2023 international marketing activities.
Staff from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) stationed in Washington and the Dominican Republic also joined. They praised the diversity of USA Rice for representing all industry segments with differing perspectives, and for conducting effective, meaningful international marketing activities grounded in research and country-specific strategies.
“As we reviewed our exports in Western Hemisphere markets over the past year, it was alarming to see our market share in Mexico and some Central American countries primarily lost to South American suppliers due to current price and quality advantages,” said Steve Vargas, chair of the USA Rice International Promotion Committee and chair of this week’s planning conference. “It is critical that we stem this negative tide and we spent time discussing ways to utilize our marketing funds to do that, while also acknowledging that this is neither a problem that appeared overnight, nor will it be as easily addressed.”
The group also spent time visiting the local trade, including ADOFA (Dominican Association of Rice Millers), importers Agrocomercial Los Samanes and Font Gamundi, and Fersan, a fertilizer company.
“There are 35,000 rice farmers here, most of whom farm two crops a year on just a few acres, but they’ve been doing it for generations and plan to continue doing so,” said USA Rice Chair Kirk Satterfield, who attended the meetings. “We felt the passion for rice in every single meeting we had – rice is not just a crop here, it’s a way of life, which I can fully appreciate.”
The Dominican Republic is part of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) and while four of the six countries went to free trade for U.S. rice this year, the Dominican Republic has two more years until that happens. The domestic industry here expressed concern over the likely increase in U.S. imports into the country once free trade is achieved, and frank and open discussions were held about the reality of U.S. rice’s competitiveness in the market. USA Rice continues to support U.S. government policy regarding free trade agreements.
The Dominican Republic has been a loyal buyer of U.S. rice, filling the yearly tariff rate quota (TRQ) amounts nearly every year, which started at 10,700 tons of milled and brown rice in 2006 and increased to 22,600 tons this year.
The planning conference concluded with approval of country-specific strategies and budgets for the coming year which will be presented to the USA Rice International Promotion Committee later this month for their consideration.