Amidst the recent COVID-19 crisis, SunRice has experienced significant increase in demand for SunRice products, which has affected availability of stock in Australian retailers. The most significant increase in demand has been for rice and rice food products, but the business has also seen increased demand across the Riviana Foods product range, including Always Fresh. We are producing stock as quickly as possible from our rice processing and packing facilities in the Riverina, although demand for products is currently exceeding supply capability.
With the low Australian crops of C19 and C20, Australia is not self-sufficient in rice. Due to the drought and issues with water policy, the Australian crop sizes in C19 and C20 represent less than 25 per cent of annual domestic rice consumption requirements which has led to an increasing reliance on imported rice.
The SunRice Group is now flexing its international supply capability to source high-quality rice from international sources to temporarily supplement supply to the Australian market. However, if there is no change to the current outlook to water availability and water prices for annual plantings between now and the 2020 planting window in October/November, there is likely to be another extremely small Australian crop.
SunRice, working closely with the Ricegrowers' Association (RGA), has commenced discussions with the Basin Governments around the potential for an allocation of water to be made available to Australian rice growers ahead of the planting window later in 2020 to ensure continued supply of Australian-grown rice for domestic consumption.
As many growers will have seen, SunRice and the RGA also recently featured in a story on ABC’s Landline program (Sunday 29/3/20) which highlighted the significant issues with water policy in the southern Murray-Darling Basin, and particularly the disproportionate impacts on the rice industry and other annual crops from national water reform.
Laurie Arthur
SunRice Group Chairman