The National Federation of Rice Growers (Fedearroz) announced that next July the first four containers of Colombian cereal will be exported to the United States market.
The manager of Fedearroz, Rafael Hernández, assured that “this has been a job of more than two years. We have looked for international markets for Colombian rice. We seek competitiveness, Free Trade Agreements (FTA) have been a challenge because we only have two alternatives: we improve competitiveness or we stay out of the market”.
“It is not about achieving competitiveness by sacrificing the utility of producers, but by improving costs. We are doing well and the results are visible, ”she added.
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In his turn, the president of the Colombian Farmers Society (SAC), Jorge Bedoya, explained that “ten years ago nobody thought that rice could be an export product and that, on the contrary, the Treaty would suffer a lot. Free Trade with the United States. Today evidence is being given that the world can change. The important thing is that we are not going to face any restrictions to enter the United States with the rice”.
He also warned that “As long as the agreement with the Andean Community of Nations is not revised, our rice will never be allowed to enter, but we will receive rice from Ecuador and Peru. Now, we are going to see the gold test with the USA to see if there is a true bilateral relationship in the trade of a product that we bring from the United States, but the time has come for it to enter that country.”
The Minister of Agriculture, Rodolfo Zea, mentioned that “last year we had many difficulties in the rice sector due to overproduction and one of the alternatives was to look at the issue of exports, but exporting is not done overnight. I had to do a commercial job and this year we already see how we can already have the first containers to the United States. It is little, but it is the opening what we do to a market that we had never thought we could reach”.
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The official stated that “if we have the capacity to export, if the prices serve us to export we will be able to increase the planted areas and we can cover the internal and external demand”.
On the other hand, the Minister of Agriculture referred to the incentive for rice storage. “Last year we played an important role in controlling the price drop. This year we are working so that before we leave that incentive is clear and designed and that it benefits the producers,” he said.
“We hope to give that incentive this year to producers. Last year we made an investment between what was the incentive for storage and what was the incentive for rice marketing of approximately 60,000 million pesos,” he concluded.
