News

India: Rice is the new threat to food crisis

Rice
India
Published Aug 4, 2022

Tridge summary

Rice is now a new threat to global food security. The low rainfall, the narrowing of rice fields, and the high demand for exports in India have made the global rice supply decline. India is the world's largest exporter of rice and contributes 40% to the global rice trade. Reported by The Economic Times, India's rice exports in 2021 will reach 21.5 million tons. This amount is greater than the combined exports from Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan and the United States (US). India is not the largest producer of rice in the world. Referring to data from the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2019, China is still the world's rice producer with a total production of 211.4 million tons, followed by India at 177.6 million tons, then Indonesia (54.6 million tons). However, the very large consumption of rice makes China and Indonesia unable to become major exporters.

Original content

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia - In the last three years, rice field in India has decreased drastically. This year, rice field decreased by 13% due to lack of rainfall, including in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. These two regions account for 25% of India's rice production. Rice land in India's six rice-producing regions decreased by 3.7 million hectares this year, compared to the same period last year. The decrease in land can reduce production by up to 10 million tons. Land that continues to decrease can make harvests decrease and domestic rice prices jump. If conditions worsen India could just ban rice exports as they did with wheat. The signal for a spike in rice prices has already been seen. Rice prices in India have jumped 30% since June. In addition to domestic demand, the price hike was also triggered by soaring export demand. India supplies rice to 100 countries from Nepal to Saudi Arabia. Demand from Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia increased sharply so that it helped ...
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