First up was getting together with the USA Rice Federation's promotion contractor here in Japan -- Ms. Yumi Kojima. Yumi's work promoting U.S. rice in Japan dates back into the 1990's when she worked for our long time promotion firm Uniflex, Inc. Yumi left Uniflex several years ago and embarked on her own private PR firm handling the marketing of imported agricultural products here in Japan from the U.S. and the European Union. Two years ago, the USA Rice Federation ended its long time relationship with Uniflex and moved our account back with Yumi. She continues to have incredible trade contacts in this market with the importers and wholesalers/distributors, as well as direct relationships with the growing foodservice sector.
The meeting with Yumi was intended to brief us on the ongoing promotions campaign in Japan, the current market and political situations, and to prepare us for the next day's two major promotion events. During this meeting, a reoccurring theme was the acceptance in the marketplace of imported rice by end users and consumers. It seems that over the past year as the Japanese rice market has increased in price dramatically, it has opened the door for importers to bring in rice from other origins, and that has been met with great interest from the public.
These themes were also conveyed to us at the U.S. Embassy where we met with Ag Minister Counselor Geoff Wiggin and Steve Shnitzler from the ATO's office here in Japan. Geoff has been for the past two years, and has been a wonderful friend to U.S. rice during his tenure. We will be sorry to see him leave next month when he returns to Washington, DC, but we also look forward to meeting and working with his replacement. Another fascinating piece of information that we learned at the Embassy is that the first GMO agricultural product from the U.S. has been approved for sale and distribution in Japan -- a papaya from Hawaii. We were all literally shell shocked when Geoff told us that due to overall negative view of anything GMO in Japan.
For our final meeting of the day, Michael Rue and I split off from the rest of the delegation and headed over to sit down with the Japanese Government at the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). The primary purpose of this meeting was to formally be introduced to Mr. Naritoshi Takayama, the new Director for International Affairs on Staple Food. He assumed this position on April 1, after the latest round of restructuring which has left the food portion of MAFF officially a "Division" now rather than an agency or a department. Our long time friend and acquaintance MAFF "Eddis" Sato is back in the rice division after the restructuring as well. After formal introductions, Michael explained the state of the 2012 California rice crop and planting season. There was discussion about the increase in short grain production in California aimed the SBS program for Japan, and we requested that MAFF begin its tendering announcement schedule as soon as possible in order to allow the market and the industry to prepare. The rice team from MAFF will visit Sacramento this summer for yearly meetings between the U.S. and Japan covering technical issues.
Chris CrutchfieldPresident and CEO -- American Commodity Company
Chris Crutchfield is very proud to represent the third generation of his family to be involved in the rice industry. Currently Chris is involved in all aspects of California rice from production all the way to the grocery store shelf.
Shortly after graduating from the University of Missouri in 1996, Chris moved back to California and joined with his father Paul Crutchfield in the formation of a rough rice pool for direct marketing to Turkey. Chris was responsible for the day-to-day management of the pool. That partnership developed into the formation of American Commodity Company (ACC) in 2000, and Chris assumed all direct management responsibilities for ACC.
Prior to establishing himself in the California rice industry, Chris worked in the press offices of Governor Pete Wilson as his Assistant Press Secretary. He also briefly taught secondary education in the California public school system.
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