US exports rice to Cuba

US rice shipments to Cuba have resumed after a nine-month lull when the Communist-run island announced it would screen imports for a genetically-modified strain that had been found in American rice, the US Agriculture Department said on Wednesday.

Cuba imported 33,800 metric tonnes of long-grain milled rice for the week ended April 19, the USDA said in its recent weekly export sales report. It was the first rice shipment in the 2006/07 marketing year that began in August.

The Food and Drug Administration and USDA notified the public August 18 that testing by Bayer CropScience, a division of Bayer AG , found the unapproved genetically modified rice known as LLrice 601 in Arkansas and Missouri storage bins. The strain has since been approved.

The industry was hit hard by exports losses and higher testing costs soon after the August discovery. Several countries, including Japan, Korea and Canada, now require testing of imported US rice. The USA rice Federation, which markets and promotes US rice, said overall rice sales to Cuba could go as high as $210 million a year, or an estimated 600,000 MT without trade barriers.