Browse Data and Analysis

Zimbabwe’s production of its staple crop, corn, is expected to drop by almost 60 percent in marketing year 2024/25 due to extreme drought conditions associated with the El Niño weather phenomenon.

On June 4, a Costa Rican court restored the Chaves administration's policy of dramatically lower tariffs on imported milled and rough rice, overturning an earlier court ruling that reversed the lower tariffs in April 2024.

FAS/San José anticipates Costa Rica's Ministry of Foreign Trade to allocate 2024 Dominican Republic - Central America Free Trade Agreement rice quota allocations by the end of April, effectively constraining the availability of U.S. duty-free rice to the final eight months of 2024. Though Costa Rica typically allocates quota volumes in December of the preceding year, calculations of 2024 volumes have been contested by importers following an extraordinary process resulting from a 2022 cyber attack.

Costa Rica reinstated 35 percent tariffs on non-U.S.-origin rice after an administrative court overturned an August 2022 tariff reduction and the Government’s appeal was rejected. Demand for U.S. rice has surged following the tariff restoration on reduced South American-origin rice competitiveness.

U.S. rough rice exports have plummeted and the decline of Costa Rican rice production has accelerated sharply following the Government of Costa Rica’s August 2022 tariff rate reduction on imported rice from all origins.

Zimbabwe’s corn crop for marketing year 2023/24 is estimated at 1.5 million metric tons. This represents an increase of five percent from the previous marketing year’s crop, mainly due to a normal rainfall season in the northern parts of the country.

On July 6, the Government of Costa Rica published a draft executive decree that would dramatically reduce tariffs on imported milled and rough rice. The vast majority of U.S. rice exported to Costa Rica in 2021 (valued at $25 million) entered under a duty free quota for rough rice established by the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement.

Zimbabwe’s corn crop for marketing year (MY) 2022/23 is estimated at 1.6 million metric tons (MMT), representing a drop of 43 percent from the bumper crop of 2.7 MMT produced in MY 2021/22. Many factors contributed to the drop in production including sub-optimal weather conditions, high input costs and macro-economic challenges.

Damage to port facilities in New Orleans during Hurricane Ida caused significant delays to shipments of U.S. feed grains to Costa Rica, where the poultry, pork, and dairy sectors rely almost exclusively on U.S. suppliers.

Zimbabwe’s corn crop for the 2021/22 marketing year (MY) is estimated at 2.7 million tons, an increase of almost 200 percent from the 907,628 tons of corn produced in the 2020/21 MY.

Zimbabwe’s corn crop for the 2020/21 MY is estimated at 907,628 tons, 17 percent higher thanthe 2019/20 MY’s corn crop of 776,635 tons.

Costa Rican consumers rushed to the supermarkets to buy higher volumes of basic staples such as rice and beans as the first cases of COVID-19 hit the country in March.