Conference Call with Industry on Traditionally-Harvested Wild Rice

Interested parties are invited to participate in a confernece call with the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to discuss changes to the Traditionally-harvested Wild Rice specifications, and how to sell products to the USDA. USDA will review recent changes to the Wild Rice Commodity Requirements Document (WR2) dated July 28, 2016. USDA encourages questions from participants during the call, including how to apply to sell Wild Rice for use in USDA/Domestic Food Assistance Programs (Domestic Programs). USDA/AMS intends to purchase Traditionally-harvested Wild Rice for Domestic Programs through two Request for Quotes/Solicitations which were issued July 28, 2016. See Fed Biz Opps (FBO) Pre-solicitation notice AG-DRPD-S-16-0098 for Traditionally-harvested Wild Rice that is hand parched using only wood or FBO Pre-solicitation AG-SJ15-16-0100 for Traditionally-harvested Wild Rice that is mechanically parched using only wood. Traditionally-harvested wild rice must be of U.S. origin, i.e., grown, harvested, processed, packaged, etc., within the United States. The conference call with industry on wild rice is scheduled for: August 3, 2016 2:00 p.m. Central Time To participate, use the following toll-free conference call-in number and access code: Toll-free phone number: 1-888-844-9904 Access Code: 1650364