USDA’s Cochran Fellows from Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana Visit USA Rice

ARLINGTON, VA – Last week, USA Rice hosted 12 USDA Cochran Fellowship Program participants from Côte d'Ivoire (CDI) and Ghana, coordinated by Dr. Ranjit Mane from the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff.  The group was a mixture of people involved in the rice growing, milling, importing, and government sectors in their home countries.

Parts of West Africa have sporadically been key markets for U.S. rice exporters for more than 50 years, including CDI, Ghana, and Nigeria.  Ten years ago, U.S. exports to Ghana hovered around 100,000 metric tons (MT) annually, with a 10-year average (2012-2021) at 28,135 MT per year.  USA Rice conducts marketing activities in Ghana including educational seminars for hundreds of professional cooks in several cities within the country, promoting brands such as Texas Star that utilize U.S. rice (see USA Rice Daily, June 16, 2022).  U.S. exports to CDI have been more modest over the same period, averaging 17,197 MT per year but with a spike to 51,683 MT in 2021 due to USDA food assistance projects (see USA Rice Daily, April 16, 2021).  Both markets primarily import milled and parboiled long grain with a mix of other varieties in some years.

The Fellowship provides training opportunities for agricultural professionals from middle-income countries, emerging markets, and emerging democracies.  They receive hands-on training to enhance their technical knowledge and skills in areas related to agricultural trade, agribusiness development, management, policy, and marketing.  Long-term, the Fellowship hopes to strengthen and enhance trade linkages between participant countries and agricultural interests in the United States.

“The Fellows came from countries that rely on rice as a staple of their diets, and as much as they aspire to be self-sufficient with local production, they’re not there yet,” said Peter Bachmann, USA Rice vice president of policy and government affairs.  “In order to meet their needs, they have to import rice and all cited U.S. rice as the gold standard for quality, but due to a number of factors, they rely primarily on importers like India.  But many hope that will change and they want to not only improve their own production practices, but build a more consistent and reliable import channel from the U.S.”

Unfortunately, India’s trade distorting practices led to much of Africa’s reliance on their cheap imports of broken, long grain, and fragrant rice.  And with recent Indian export restrictions, (see USA Rice Daily, September 9, 2022), middle-income and developing countries like CDI and Ghana will have to pay more for the same amount of rice and may look for more stable suppliers.

In addition to visiting USA Rice’s offices in Arlington, the Fellows spent several days meeting with USDA officials in Washington and spent a week in Arkansas, touring rice harvest and meeting with researchers, producers, and exporters there.