Rice bran price

Rice bran is an energy feed, fed for its digestible energy. On a dry-matter basis it runs about 14.8% crude protein and 70% TDN, at about 90% dry matter as fed. Those figures come from University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension, Use of Commodity Feeds in Dairy Rations (FSA4013). Full-fat rice bran. NEl not tabulated by an NRC source (INRA-only), so energy is ranked on TDN. The leaderboard uses them to convert each USDA report week's board price into a cost per pound of protein and per pound of energy, so it can be ranked against corn and soybean meal. Prices are quoted per ton, and the cheapest board price is not the cheapest fed price once freight and moisture are counted (see the FOB-vs-delivered guide). Rice bran is the oil-rich layer polished off brown rice on its way to becoming white rice, so supply ties to milling volume in the rice belt of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Texas and California. Left in its natural, full-fat state, the bran's own enzymes turn the oil rancid within days of milling, so buyers either feed it fast and fresh or pay for a heat-stabilized product with real shelf life. Some bran is diverted instead to rice bran oil extraction for cooking and nutraceutical markets, competing with feed for supply. Dairy, swine and aquaculture rations use it for energy, though its fat, like hominy's, can soften pork fat if overfed.

The mill is selling white rice, not bran. USDA's Economic Research Service counts five products from rough rice (hulls, bran, brown rice, whole-kernel milled rice and brokens) and notes most of the bran goes to animal feed. The money is in the kernels. The University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture rice handbook notes broken kernels are worth well under whole ones in most markets, and that the degree of milling, how much bran comes off, is set by the end use the rice is milled for. Milling harder also carries some endosperm into the bran stream. Bran tonnage and makeup follow those rice decisions, and a strong bran bid cannot call more rice through the mill.

Harvested in one season, milled in all of them. USA Rice puts harvest from mid-July into November, with rough rice dried down for storage; milling and storage run year-round. ERS starts the rice marketing year on different dates by state: July 1 in Texas and Louisiana, August 1 in Arkansas and Mississippi, September 1 in Missouri and October 1 in California. Bran therefore flows through the whole year rather than in one harvest pulse, drawn from rice held in storage.

Full-fat and stabilized are two different products. The Arkansas handbook's glossary defines stabilized rice bran as bran treated to inactivate the enzymes that break its fat down into free fatty acids, and notes industrial bran is normally a mix of bran and germ; the milling chapter puts rice bran at roughly a fifth oil. Full-fat bran has to be used fast. Stabilized bran can be stored and hauled, and Feedipedia notes that defatted bran, left once the oil is extracted, can be fed at higher levels than the ordinary product. That splits one stream among three kinds of buyer: nearby feeders who take fresh full-fat bran, buyers who pay for shelf life and oil extractors whose leftover bran returns to feed as a leaner product.

Measured against corn. On this board rice bran competes as an energy feed, so corn is its yardstick. The rice bran vs corn table on this page shows the pair in the latest USDA week, and the cheapest-energy board puts it on a cost-per-TDN footing next to every other energy source.