USA Rice's international promotion programs funded

The USA Rice Federation received notice this week that the Office of Management and Budget has apportioned Program Year (PY) 2014 funds to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) . FAS Administrator Phil Karsting has signed the PY 2014 Decision Memo allocating PY 2014 Market Access and Foreign Market Development program funding (MAP and FMD).

For PY 2014, USA Rice received $4,270,815 in MAP and FMD funds, 3.5% more than received in 2013. These funds enable USA Rice to conduct important marketing and promotional work for all types and forms of U.S. rice in over 30 countries throughout the world. Each year's allocation is the result of a competitive review of past program performance and industry support for the promotion programs. It is worth noting that the U.S. rice industry has some of the highest levels of industry support amongst all of the agriculture commodities, adding more than $20 million in additional support for export promotion of rice. Approximately 90 cooperator groups compete for MAP/FMD funds, with new cooperator groups being added each year.

"Every year, USA Rice compiles data, performance measurements and market information for each of the countries and regions where we conduct programs, and this becomes the basis of our request," said Jim Guinn, USA Rice's vice president of international promotion. "We also point to successes, for example, exports to Mexico have increased 24% in the last ten years."