First Published in 1996. The United States is one of the major grain producing and exporting countries in the world. The grain provides economic livelihood for many millions of farm families in the world and those engaged in marketing and distribution. Rice is a major crop for the United States in international grain trade though it is not a major crop for consumption. One of the questions the U.S. grain industry has been facing is the question of how to keep its appropriate share in the world market. The purpose of this book is to determine the cost per ton of shipping rice for selected sizes of bulk vessels from various U.S. southern ports of origin to specific foreign import ports. These cost data are then used in a transportation model to estimate a least-cost shipping pattern for U.S. rice exports