WASHINGTON, DC – On April 30, Kirk Satterfield, a Mississippi rice producer and current chair of USA Rice, and Peter Bachmann, president & CEO of USA Rice, testified before the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) in a public hearing on the global competitiveness and impacts on trade of the U.S. rice industry. Satterfield and Bachmann were two of five witnesses providing information to the Commissioners.
Commending past efforts of the USITC to produce its 2015 study,
Rice: Global Competitiveness of the U.S. Industry, Bachmann praised the 450+ page document as “one of the best publicly available resources that outlines the scope and impact of this trade distortion by major exporters like India.” He thanked the USITC for “today’s efforts to update the study to further outline impacts of over-subsidization and other creative policy maneuvers by global rice exporters.”
Satterfield summarized the impacts of foreign government intervention in the global rice market at the farm level. “As an especially high input crop that is particularly subject to severe global market distortions due to the predatory trade practices of foreign countries, U.S. rice farmers are much more vulnerable to the impacts of skyrocketing inflation and other global events that have caused increases to the costs of fuel, fertilizer, labor, and other crop inputs. Not to mention, we’re subject to the highest interest rates many farmers today have ever experienced. As a capital-intensive business, rice farmers put everything on the line each year to grow a crop.”
Satterfield continued: “In short, U.S. rice farmers cannot compete on such a distorted playing field. We can compete against any other farmer in the world, but we just can’t compete against other governments manipulating our markets.”
Both India and China’s consistent side-stepping of their WTO commitments made them prominent discussion topics amongst all five witnesses and a bipartisan swath of subcommittee members.
“U.S. rice faces many forms of anti-competitive barriers to export,” Bachmann testified. “While our industry is recovering from drought and is eager to meet global demand, our exporters continue to face existing and new challenges from government interventions causing distorted prices to protectionist policy actions.”
Others testifying included Pakistan’s rice exporters, the U.S. Rice Producers Association, and the University of Arkansas who unanimously echoed the concerns of India’s global market manipulation.
Following U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith’s (R-MO) request in February 2024 to update the 2015 report, the USITC has until March 2025 to publish its updates.