Christopher Fisher
Betsy Ward, president and CEO of the USA Rice Federation, was fuming recently when the Iraqi Grain Board (IGB) neglected, once again, to purchase American rice from corporate behemoth Archer Daniels Midland and opted instead for more expensive varieties from Brazil, Uruguay and Thailand. It was the third consecutive strikeout for U.S. rice producers in Iraq.
“The results make no sense,” said Ward, according to Politico. “The U.S. is price competitive, the quality is excellent, the logistics are perfect, so why would the IGB want to pay significantly more than they have to?”
USA Rice spokesman Michael Klein told Politico that “Iraq paid $1.4 million more than it needed to get the 170,000 tons of rice it was looking to buy.”
“Despite very competitive bids, the U.S. was shut out of the previous tender, which raises the question of where these decisions are being made, at the Iraqi Grain Board, or some higher political level within the Ministry [of Trade] itself,” Ward later wrote.
USA Rice spoke with the USDA to enlist their help ascertaining what the problem was with the Iraqis, whose country had been the second largest importer of U.S.-grown rice back in 2005/2006, purchasing over 380,000 tons.
Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry, asking him to press the Iraqis, as did Arkansas Sen. John Boozman and Rep. Rick Crawford. Arkansas and Louisiana are states number 1 and 3, respectively, in acres devoted to rice production in the United States.
USA Rice’s Betsy Ward thought the Iraqis needed a reminder of all that U.S. taxpayers have done for them:
Given that U.S. taxpayers have a significant investment in Iraq, I would hope the government there, from the Prime Minister on down, understands how important it is for American rice farmers to be fairly considered to win this business.
Some notable features of U.S. taxpayers’ “investment” in Iraq in the early years of this century: