Vietnam is under new scrutiny for violating U.S. food safety regulations. The Food and Drug Administration has rejected 95 shipping containers of jasmine rice from Vietnam between January and August of this year. The FDA says the imports were rejected because of illegal pesticide residue in all but one of the cases. USA Rice Federation CEO Betsy Ward responded “we are, frankly, happy with the disruption,” because “there is no need to import jasmine rice from more than 11,000 miles away when we grow it in the United States.” For the three marketing years from 2013-2015, rice imports from Vietnam have averaged more than 63,000 metric tons with an annual value of more than $33 million. Rice imports from Vietnam for the 2016 marketing year, which concluded in July and includes the rice shipment rejections, were just over 35,600 metric tons with a value of almost $21 million.
From the National Association of Farm Broadcasting news service.