More US Rice Could Be Moving Into Turkey

by Don Molino

According to Hartwig Schmidt, Regional Director, Africa, Europe and Middle East for USA Rice, they’re working on moving more US rice into Turkey.

During an interview with the Voice of Louisiana Agriculture Radio Network at the US Rice Outlook Conference, Schmidt said Turkey is a medium grain market right now and in the past, only California rice was shipped to that country.

“But when Jupiter (a southern medium grain variety) came onto the market “we showed samples to our clients and they actually liked the product,” said Schmidt, pointing out Turkey is a very price sensitive market and the southern medium grain price was attractive to their buyers.

“We initially found some buyers for the Jupiter rice,” says Schmidt and the first shipment made it to Turkey a couple of years ago.

“Unfortunately the Turkish government did cause us some problems because in one of the shipments, they found cross contamination from GMO corn and soybeans, which are not allowed to enter Turkey. So one or two shipment of southern medium grain rice were refused,” said Schmidt.