WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2016 - The USDA’s
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is working to certify U.S. mills so
that they will be able to export rice to China, now that both countries have
agreed on a phytosanitary protocol that paves the way for new trade, a USDA
official told Agri-Pulse.
The certification work – making sure that
mills are meeting the requirements that China has insisted on in the protocol –
is expected to run through the end of February and then the names of the
certified facilities will be sent to China, said the official, who predicted
there will be at least 30 on the list.
The USA Rice Federation announced Friday
it had been informed by APHIS that China, after years of negotiation, had
agreed to a phytosanitary protocol that would open rice trade between the two
countries. The deal is good news for the U.S. rice industry that depends on
foreign markets to sell about half its crop every year.
“We are being guarded in our expectations,
but it doesn't take a mathematician to realize that even a small piece of this
enormous market could be a very big number for U.S. rice,” said USA Rice
spokesman Michael Klein.
It will likely not be until April that China
publishes its official ministerial decree, together with the list of certified
U.S. facilities, a USDA official said on terms of anonymity because the process
won’t be officially complete until China files all of the paperwork.
Dwight Roberts, president of the U.S. Rice
Producers Association, told Agri-Pulse that he has heard rumblings of
China possibly wanting an official signing ceremony, but stressed that APHIS
was emphatic that the protocol has been agreed upon by both countries.
An APHIS spokeswoman said that while there
has been no official signing of the protocol, the agency “can confirm that we
and China’s Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine
are in the last phase of finalizing this regulatory process.”
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