On the bubble: With tight world supplies, an interruption anywhere could likely send prices higher and help U.S. exports.

摘要

Once the top rice-exporting country globally in 1980, the United States has since slipped to a distant sixth place where it only has a 7 percent share of world rice trade."The rest of the world has increased by almost four-fold since 1980," says Carl Brothers, senior vice president and chief operations officer of Stuttgart, Arkansas-based Riceland Foods. "This is not healthy for us. Something has to happen because we're not participating in world trade like we used to."