Arkansas Rice to Arrive in Panama October 10

Some 60,000 quintals (equal to six million kilos) of first-rate rice will arrive in the country on October 10, President José Raúl Mulino announced.

The controversial purchase was made by the Agricultural Marketing Institute (IMA) with an investment of $3 million and the grain will come from Arkansas, United States, as the institution had announced, considering that there is a shortage.

Mulino reiterated that there is no rice and the IMA cannot run the risk of running out of rice. “We did it as a kind of transition, because there is no rice supply in the country. It is a matter of what they want to say,” he reiterated. He indicated that the National Association of Millers (ANALMO) proposed to deliver between 12,000 and 15,000 quintals weekly, but they only managed to contribute 5,000 quintals.

The president said that rice is necessary to supply agricultural markets, agricultural distributors, and agricultural stores nationwide. However, he made it clear that this import will not affect rice production at all, because whatever the locals produce will be purchased from them.