UN food agency lowers 2012 global rice forecast

An Indian farmer works in a paddy field near Saputara, India, on August 3. (AFP/File - Sam Panthaky)

07 August 2012
AFP

ROME: The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) revised down its global rice forecast for 2012 on Monday due to low monsoon rainfall in India, but said world output should still be greater than in 2011.

The 2012 forecast has been revised down by 7.8 million tonnes "due to a 22-per cent lower-than-average monsoon rainfall in India through mid-July, which is likely to reduce output in the country this season," the Rome-based FAO said.

Production forecasts have also been reduced for Cambodia, Taiwan, North and South Korea, and Nepal, according to the July 2012 issue of the Rice Market Monitor, which was published by the food agency on Monday.

Floods Ruining 14% of Thai Rice May Erase Global Export Glut: Commodities

The main Thai harvest, which represents about 70 percent of annual output, was expected to expand 3.3 percent to a record 25.1 million tons before the floods, government estimates show. Photographer: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images

Oct 25, 2011
By Luzi Ann Javier and Supunnabul Suwannakij
Bloomberg

Thailand’s worst floods in more than a half century may have wiped out as much as 14 percent of paddy fields in the world’s biggest rice exporter, potentially erasing the predicted global glut.

The Thai export price, a global benchmark, may climb 20 percent to $750 a ton by December, said Sumeth Laomoraphorn, the president of C.P. Intertrade Co., the country’s largest seller of packaged rice. Tropical storms inundated 62 of 77 provinces, destroying 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) and as much as 7 million metric tons of crops, the government says. That equals 4.6 million tons of milled grain, 1 million more than the surplus anticipated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Rice, a staple for half the world, was already this year’s best-performing agricultural commodity after drought cut the U.S. harvest to the lowest level in 13 years. Prices also rose as Thailand started buying at above-market costs to boost farmer incomes. That is adding renewed pressure to global food prices monitored by the United Nations, which had dropped 5 percent from a record in February as other grains declined.

Thai Rice Damage May Push Up Global Prices, Mohanty Says

Oct 12, 2011
By Pratik Parija and Supunnabul Suwannakij
Bloomberg

Damage to rice crops from Thailand to Philippines may “push up” prices this year as global production of milled rice may be less than previously forecast, according to the International Rice Research Institute.

Flooding in Thailand, the biggest exporter, may have damaged as much as 5 million metric tons of paddy, while a typhoon in Philippines and flooding in Cambodia and Laos will trim rice output, Samarendu Mohanty, a senior economist at the institute, said in New Delhi today. Global production of milled rice may be as low as 455 million tons in the year that began on Sept. 1, less than the 460 million forecast last month, he said.

Reduced rice supplies, the staple for half the world, may fuel a 21 percent rally in prices in the past year in Chicago and boost global food costs that the United Nations predicts will remain high and fluctuating as demand rises because of economic growth. Damage to crops may boost import demand for rice, Robert Zeigler, director-general of the institute, said in a separate interview.

Catch 22 in Hun Sen's so-called development policy: Farm sell-offs endanger Cambodian rice production

Farm sell-offs endanger Cambodian rice production

PHNOM PENH, March 24 (Xinhua) -- Rice production will be reduced in Cambodia if rice fields continue to be sold to be converted to business, factory or residential sites, the Mekong Times newspaper reported Monday, citing an Agriculture Ministry official.

"We are worried that, in the future, only non-fertile land will remain for cultivation because most of the rice fields will have been sold off," Kit Seng, director of the planning department of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

Uon Sophal, a farmer in Cambodia's Kampot province, said that if current land transaction trends continue, most farmland will end up in the hands of the rich.

"Then farmers will find it more difficult to afford food," he said. "I would like to appeal to farmers not to sell their land because this will cause a shortage of farmland and it will drive rice prices up, which will be a burden on the country."

Farms in Cambodia are currently run overwhelmingly by impoverished farmers, and because of this poverty they are often tempted to sell their land for ready cash, said Chey Siyat, a member of an agricultural NGO.

According to MAFF figures, 85 percent of Cambodia's population relies on agriculture for a living.

Cambodia produces 6 million tons of unhusked rice annually and there are 2.3 million hectares of rice paddy land.