2017 Rice Harvest, Katy, Texas
The soybean farmers are crying the blues over the tariff battles of President Trump. They need to plow up those beans and start leveling and planing their fields to grow rice. Once again, Trump proves he knows how to win.
China is buying U.S. rice for the first time. The “South China Morning Post” reported Chinese customs officials cleared American rice for import on Thursday. It’s not clear how much China will buy, but the U.S. rice industry calls China the 800 pound gorilla for the industry, and a market barrier it’s been trying to break for decades. Johnny Sullivan of Producers Rice Mill, Inc. says “China is a monster of a market. The facts are based on the consumption rate of rice in China, the short story is China could chew through the entire U.S. crop in 14 days, so it’s unreal.”
The news comes as leaders from the two countries prepare to meet in mid-January to continue trade talks. The trade war ceasefire between the U.S. and China started earlier in December, when President Trump and President Xi Jinping met at the G20 summit in Argentina. The U.S. agreed not to raise tariff levels if the two countries can come to an agreement on a host of issues, including trade.
An important event in the development of the Texas Gulf Coast rice industry was the introduction of seed imported from Japan in 1904. Seed rice had previously come from Honduras or the Carolinas. At the invitation of the Houston Chamber of Commerce and the Southern Pacific Railroad, Japanese farmers were brought to Texas to advise local farmers on rice production, bringing with them seed as a gift from the emperor of Japan. The first three years’ harvest, which produced an average of thirty-four barrels an acre compared with an average of eighteen to twenty barrels from native rice seed, was sold as seed to Louisiana and Texas farmers. C. J. Knapp, founder of the United States agricultural agent system, helped to overcome government regulation to bring seed rice into the country. Japanese rice production began at Webster in Harris County under the direction of Seito Saibara, his family, and thirty original colonists. The Saibara family has been credited with establishing the Gulf Coast rice industry.
and this,
He was invited by the Japanese consul on behalf of the Houston Chamber of Commerce and the Southern Pacific railroad to teach rice production to local farmers and came to Texas in 1903. At Webster he subsequently founded the first Japanese Christian colony in Texas, brought over his family and thirty colonists to work with him, and began rice farming on a lease of 1,000 acres that he later purchased. The first crop, grown from seed imported as a gift from the Emperor of Japan and harvested in 1904, was primarily distributed as seed in Texas and Louisiana.
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