USA Rice Testifies at Closer to

Zero Meeting
By Cameron Jacobs

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – Yesterday, the U.S.

Department of Agriculture hosted an all-day public
meeting in partnership with the U.S. Food & Drug
Administration on the latter agency’s Closer to Zero
Initiative (C2Z) to reduce children’s exposure to toxic
elements from food. Speakers included government
officials, regulators, researchers, stakeholders, industry
representatives, and others. USA Rice CEO Betsy Ward
testified on behalf of the rice industry.

The meeting opened with an overview by the FDA on current Closer to Zero efforts and
updates on the initiative from representatives of the USDA Agricultural Research Service
(ARS) and Food and Nutrition Service (FNS). Participants then heard about USDA ARS
research programs for rice, sweet potatoes, carrots, and spinach.

Rice research topics presented were Mitigating Arsenic in Rice, A Path Forward from Dr. Anna
McClung; Plant Genes and Mechanisms that Regulate Arsenic Uptake, Transport, and
Accumulation in Rice Grains, from Dr. Shannon Pinson; and the Impact on Heavy Metals in
Rice Grains Due to Cultural Management delivered by Dr. Michele Reba.

Next, attendees were briefed on ARS Food Safety research followed by an overview from the
National Institute of Food and Agriculture on how the institute is supporting the C2Z initiative.
A major point of discussion revolved around the Potential Economic Impacts of Food Safety
Concerns on Producers and Consumers and how it relates to rice which was delivered by
USDA Economic Research Service officials.

USA Rice CEO Betsy Ward kicked off the industry perspective portion of the meeting
expressing support for the C2Z initiative’s science-based approach while dispelling falsehoods
and consumer confusion fueled by activists. She was one of just five food and agriculture
industry leaders who testified and addressed follow up questions. Other industry
representatives were from the Sweet Potato Council, International Fresh Produce Association,
Seafood Nutrition Partnership, and Nestle/Gerber.

“Rice is the only ingredient in baby food for which there already exists an FDA action level,”
Ward began. “FDA set a very low limit for inorganic arsenic in rice used in infant rice cereal
and their data show we meet that threshold.”

Ward reminded the group of the health benefits of rice, citing data and conclusions from the
Centers for Disease Control’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

“Rice is a naturally nutrient dense food delivering protein, fiber, and other important vitamins
and minerals at a price point everyone can afford,” she said. “Consumption of rice baby cereal
in the 0-24-month population was linked to better nutrient intake, which lead to better overall
health and lower risk of disease.  Infants who consumed baby cereal had greater
 consumption of nutrients like iron and calcium, and had lower intakes of unhealthy foods and
ingredients setting up young eaters on a path of following positive eating and dietary
patterns.”

Ward closed her remarks by promising continued industry transparency but urging FDA to
stop sole reliance on end-product testing until action levels for all baby food ingredients can
be developed.

“Since rice is the only product for which there is an action level, rice is disproportionately
impacted by the current regulatory approach,” she said. “This can result in hesitancy or
refusal of some manufacturers to use rice as an ingredient, even though U.S.-grown rice is
below the FDA’s action level.”

USA Rice Promotion in Mexico Boosts Sales

By Sarah Moran

MEXICO CITY, MEXICO – Sanborns, a well-known restaurant chain in Mexico with 168 locations and 36
cafés around the country, is featured in guidebooks, the Atlas Obscura, and is popular with locals as
well. Their menu features traditional Mexican dishes with new menu offerings added monthly. USA
Rice has partnered with the foodservice giant in the past, (“Mexico Heralds Return of USA Rice’s ‘Paella
Wednesday’ Promo,” USA Rice Daily, May 15, 2015), and during November and December of 2021 rolled
out a new special campaign, “Las Delicias del Arroz” (Rice Delicacies).
Inside the historic Sanborns flagship

The Rice Delicacies promotion was launched nationwide and was available through delivery service
apps, such as Uber Eats, Rappi, Didi, and Sanborns own delivery service. Six innovative rice recipes were
included on the menu and were promoted via a QR code. The dishes were: Mexican Rice with Poblano
Mole, Mexican Rice with Two Fried Eggs, Mexican Rice with Plantain, Yellow Rice with Fish, Rice
Pudding, and Valencian Paella.

“We saw an excellent return on our investment here,” said Asiha Grigsby, USA Rice director of
international promotion for the western hemisphere. “Sanborns typically goes through 15 metric tons of
U.S.-grown rice at this time of year, but they purchased an additional three metric tons to keep up with
demand thanks to the popularity of the program. This promotion definitely helped move the needle for
U.S. origin rice consumption in our largest export market and helped further solidify our great
relationship with the chain.”

Inspired by excitement around the Rice Delicacies campaign, Sanborns chefs added two additional
recipes: Creamy Rice and Rice with Dry Fruits, to their ready-to-eat meals sold in packages of 1kg or
more on their 2022 menus.

Sanborns also made use of the Arroz Americano Auténtico logo on promotional materials.

In 2021 the U.S. exported 765,000 MT of all rice types to Mexico, valued at $306 million.

Rice Quality Symposium at

Breeding Rice for Central 2021 USA Rice Outlook
America Conference
By Deborah Willenborg

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – Combined, the countries of

Central America are the second largest export market
for U.S. rice. However, changes in consumer
preference and U.S. quality vis-à-vis other origins has
put U.S. rice at a disadvantage. The U.S. industry
needs to find a solution, so Dr. Steve Linscombe sat
down with three people hard at work on this for The
Rice Stuff podcast episode 44, available now.

LSU AgCenter rice breeder Dr. Adam Famoso explained how new rice varieties are developed,
how they are rolled out, and unique ways he and his researchers can address grain quality
issues.

Rice breeding graduate student and Ph.D. candidate Raul Guerra, also at LSU, talked about
his research that could help unlock greater Latin American acceptance, and differences in rice
consumption and preferences here and in his native Nicaragua.

USA Rice Vice President of International Sarah Moran rounded out the show providing
background on the market and her team’s efforts at promoting U.S. rice in Latin America,
including the targeted Quality Symposium series.

“These are extremely important customers so our quality events are designed to bring
together customers, rice breeders, growers, and millers to share experiences, expectations,
and goals,” explained Moran who organized the most recently USA Rice Quality Symposium at
the USA Rice Outlook Conference in December. “It’s very important we all be on the same
page to preserve and grow these great markets.”

Amylose content can be a sticking point in these markets with Latin Americans generally
favoring high amylose content rice that tends to cook up fluffier with individual grains.
Famoso explained how he’s been able to use Marker Assisted Selection to zero in on rice lines
with more favorable traits for the market.

Following the main topic, a heated discussion of changes to Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and
Oreos ensued.

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.

Do better
USA Rice Raises Rail Shipping
Concerns to Surface
Transportation Board
By Jamison Cruce

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – Last week, USA Rice

submitted comments to the Surface Transportation
Board (STB) outlining a number of rail shipping issues
impacting the U.S. rice industry and urging the STB to
take lasting actions that would resolve and prevent
these issues from reoccurring.

The comments highlighted the rice industry’s predicament of low rice prices and ever-
increasing input costs, record-high inflation, and lower production forecast for 2022 that will
ultimately have devastating impacts for the entire U.S. rice industry’s supply chain.

“Our industry is in a unique situation where we are essentially the only commodity facing
stagnant market prices yet expected to absorb the skyrocketing input costs that are plaguing
all farmers, likely leading to a second year of decreased U.S. rice production,” said the
comments. “This production decline will negatively impact rice farmers along with the entire
infrastructure supporting the rice supply chain (e.g., mills, driers, and other agribusinesses),
not to mention the rural communities that rely on the support from business generated by our
industry.”

The rice industry has made a concerted push over the last several years for customers to use
rail over other methods of transportation given its efficiency, but ongoing issues including rail
congestion, labor shortages, marginal equipment, and the lack of box and hopper cars to ship
rice and rice by-products is hampering the industry’s ability to do so and causing shippers to
resort to other, less efficient, and costly methods of transportation.

These issues have resulted in crushing losses to not only rice shippers, but also rice end-users
that have been forced to shut down production due to rice shortages.

“…there are secondary impacts for customers that are affected by not receiving our rice and
rice by-products, including brewers, pet food companies, industrial cereal and food
companies, and rice re-packers”, the comments continue. “Resulting rice shortages due to rail
availability from the supplier’s side have impacted these companies’ production schedules
causing shutdowns and production schedule adjustments.”

USA Rice also noted that communication from Class I rail carriers, which is essentially non-
existent, should be improved, and the need for accurate information from the carriers.

The Agricultural Transportation Group, of which USA Rice is a member, also

submitted comments to the STB, as well as the White House, administration officials, and
Congress, calling for immediate action and outlining several near-term solutions that could be
taken to start resolving issues and preventing future problems.

The STB is holding a public hearing April 26 and April 27, 2022, on these recent rail service
problems and recovery efforts involving several Class I carriers, including BNSF Railway
Company, CSX Transportation, Inc., Norfolk Southern Railway Company, and Union Pacific
Railroad Company. Officials from Canadian National Railway Company, Kansas City Southern
Railway Company, and Canadian Pacific Railway Company were also invited to participate.
Upper Peninsula tribes work to
restore wild rice in areas
contaminated by mining
Lindsay M. McCoy
Capital News Service
View Comments
0:00
2:34
Lansing — Dangerous metals such as arsenic and mercury have been found in
wild rice beds located on the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community reservation
and surrounding areas, according to research from Michigan Technological
University scientists and their associates.

The contamination is a toxic legacy of copper mining in the western Upper

Peninsula.

Samples of sediment, water and rice were taken from L’Anse Bay, located on
the reservation, and Lake Plumbago, a nearby inland lake in Baraga County. 

According to the study, published in the journal “Applied Sciences,” the

“uptake of toxic metals by aquatic plants and algae poses a major risk to
ecological and human health.”

Wild rice, known as manoomin in the Ojibwe language, is a semi-aquatic

wetlands grass that is abundant in the Great Lakes region and is an important
food source for the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community as well as wildlife and
migratory waterfowl. It is also considered a sacred plant to the Anishinaabe
tribes in Michigan.
Beyond the cultural significance of wild rice, it’s an important part of the food
web in the area, said Scott Herron, a biology professor at Ferris State
University. 

“All the other parts of the ecosystem depend upon the calories, energy and,
thus, food that wild rice provides to insects, birds, waterfowl, fish and later to
their predators,” Herron said. 

Heavy metals migrate to the grain of the rice and can be consumed by the
species ingesting it, Herron said.

Arsenic was found to have the highest presence in wild rice seed samples from
both locations, the study said. 
Exposure to arsenic through diet can result in a higher risk of cancer, as well
as liver and kidney disorders, according to the study.

Erin Johnston, a wildlife biologist with the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community,
said that, fortunately, wild rice in the two test areas has not been ready yet to
harvest for human consumption since efforts began to restore it there. 

The study attributed the contamination to the dumping of millions of tons of

stamp sand from mining operations into the lakes during the copper boom of
the early 1900s. Stamp sand is coarse sandlike material resulting from the
waste created by the mining industry.

“There are a lot of areas throughout this region that are still dealing with
legacy mining,” said Johnston. “There were no environmental regulations at
that time to hold anyone accountable for the negative environmental impacts.”

“They would take out the portion of the ore they could use, in this case copper,
and everything else was considered waste rock and crushed really finely,” she
said.

High levels of heavy metals such as copper, aluminum and others were found
in the wild rice tested by the researchers.

“For decades, the tribe has been studying this area to better understand the
stamp sands, how they’re moving along the shore and other potential impacts
they’re having on the landscape,” said Johnston. 

In 2006, the tribe worked to put down a 6-inch to 10-inch soil cap in an
attempt to keep the stamp sands from moving along the L’Anse Bay
lakeshore. 

“We continue to battle every year the issue of the stamp sand moving because
it’s located next to Lake Superior and you can’t control the weather,” said
Johnston. 
Researchers say it is the first such study on an inland lake where wild rice
restoration is underway.

Johnston said there was some earlier indication that 19-acre Lake Plumbago
had elevated levels of heavy metals, but not to the extent found in the new
research.

“Of course, that is, you know, concerning and something we definitely need to
look into further,” she said. 

Roger LaBine of Trout Creek has had a lifelong relationship with wild rice,
whether it was working to harvest it back in 1972 or to restore it to the U.P.
today. 

“I harvested with my family, my grandparents and my uncle,” he said. “But we

had to go to northern Wisconsin to harvest wild rice because the bed on our
traditional waters, and where our village was, was destroyed.”

LaBine is a member of the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
Indians, whose reservation is in Gogebic County, about an hour south of the
Keweenaw Bay Indian Community reservation.

LaBine said wild rice is so important to the tribes in the region, the Ojibwe,
Potawatomi and Odawa, because it was a staple in sustaining life in the area.

“The Three Fires people believe this was a sacred gift sent by the Creator and
placed in the Great Lakes Basin,” he said. 

This cultural significance is why tribes throughout the state are working to
bring wild rice back to its natural habitats.

“I would not want it to be a commercial crop because then you start getting
into that GMO and hybrid rice,” said LaBine. 

“It would be good to see wild rice like it was before colonization.”
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/environment/2022/04/24/wild-rice-mining-contamination-
michigan-upper-peninsula-keweenaw-bay-indian-community/7419646001/

Great News for Paddy Farmers! Rice

Export in FY 2022-23 to Witness a Big
Boost
Rice exports would continue to rise this fiscal year, according to official sources, due to
factors such as excess domestic stocks and the expectation of strong Kharif crops.

Binita Kumari Updated 27 April, 2022 2:13 PM IST Published on 27 April, 2022 12:56 PM IST

In the recent decade, India has been the world's top rice exporter, with export revenues reaching an all-
time high of $8.7 billion in 2020-21.

After a record shipment of approximately 20 million tons (MT) of grain worth

more than $ 9.6 billion in 2021-22, India's rice exports are expected to continue
to expand strongly in the current fiscal (2022-23).
 Rice production, which is primarily a Kharif crop, is likely to benefit from the
expected 'normal' monsoon rains this year. In the recent decade, India has been
the world's top rice exporter, with export revenues reaching an all-time high of
$8.7 billion in 2020-21.

Rice exports would continue to rise this fiscal year, according to official sources,
due to factors such as excess domestic stockpiles and the likelihood of strong
Kharif crops. The Kharif season accounts for more than 80% of India's rice
production

As of April 1, 2022, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has rice stock of more
than 32 MT, compared to the buffer norm of 13.58 MT. This stock, however, does
not include 22 MT of rice that FCI has yet to receive from millers.

"We have more than enough rice stocks to meet the Public Distribution System's
needs," a source stated.

RELATED LINKS


India Raises India's Basmati Rice Export Related Issues to EU
Agriculture Minister, Narendra Singh Tomar had a virtual meeting with European
Commissioner for Agriculture, Janusz Wojeciechowski over the cut in…


According to the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) rice outlook
report for April, worldwide rice trade in the calendar year 2022 is expected to
reach a new high of 52.5 MT, with India's rice exports expected to be around 21
MT and Vietnam's rice exports expected to be around 6 MT.

According to the DGCIS, India exported rice to more than 150 nations in 2021-
22. "It shows India's rice export diversification over time," a commerce ministry
official said.

Apart from the United States and the European Union, India sells aromatic and
long grain Basmati rice to Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern
countries. Benin, a West African country, is one of the largest importers of non-
basmati rice.
According to the Second Advance Estimates for 2021-22, rice production in the
2021-22 crop year (July-June) is expected to reach a new high of 127 MT, up 11
MT from the previous five years' average of 116 MT.

https://krishijagran.com/agriculture-world/great-news-for-paddy-farmers-rice-export-in-fy-2022-23-to-
witness-a-big-boost/