American commercial rice shipments are arriving in Iraq for the first time in over a decade.
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Iraq’s Ministry of Trade announced a series of 50-kilogram bag shipments throughout the country, which is an important market for American rice producers. In 1987, the US supplied 94% of Iraq’s 547,000 tonnes of rice imports.
Commercial shipments ceased after 1990 when an embargo following the invasion of Kuwait, allowed only non-commercial World Food Program shipments. The loss of the Iraq rice market cost the US rice industry about $2bn, according to the US Rice Federation. Current demand for rice in Iraq is estimated at just over 1m tonnes annually.
