Sushi rice moves east to the Delta | Food and Environment Reporting Network

California growers are curtailing rice plantings by 18 percent due to drought but larger plantings in the Delta will offset much of the downturn for the sticky rice used in sushi. “The decline in California medium-grain plantings due to drought and water restrictions have attracted more acres of medium-grain rice in the Delta where plantings in 2014 are projected up 39 percent,” says USDA. In the end, medium-grain area will drop 6 percent.

USDA projects short- and medium-grain rice will total 52 million hundredweight (100 lbs) this year, down from 58 million hundredweight last year, a 10 percent decline. In 2012, the short- and medium-grain rice harvest was 55.4 million hundredweight.

California is still the top state for medium-grain rice, with plantings forecast for 420,000 acres this year vs 515,000 last year, according to a USDA survey. Plantings in the Delta states of Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri would total 201,000 acres this year, up from 144,000 last year. Almost all of California’s rice is medium grain. Arkansas, the No 1 rice state overall, predominantly grows long grain rice.