India's rice export in 2012-13 may fall on low domestic production: FAO

Production to get hit on account of uneven rains in the county

India, one of the main rice exporter in the Asian region is expected to lower its annual sales because of fall in domestic production on account of uneven rains, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in its latest monthly food scenario.

It said India’s kharif rice production is projected to fall by around 6% as compared to 2011. India’s union agriculture ministry too in its first advanced estimate for 2012-2013 kharif crop season has pegged the rice output at 85.59 million tonnes, 6.5% less than last year.

Though the UN-body did not give any firm numbers on the likely drop in export numbers, but traders and industry officials said it could be anywhere between 1-2 million tonnes.

In 2011-2012, India exported around 8.30 million tonnes of rice, of which 3.21 million tonnes was the aromatic basmati rice, while the rest was non-basmati rice.

Overall, the global body said that world cereals production is expected to fall by 2.6 per cent in 2012 to around 2286 million tonnes because of large-scale drought in US, Europe and parts of Asia. It said wheat production is expected to fall by 3.2%, while coarse cereals output is expected to fall by 2.3%.

However, not much change is seen in global rice production as compared to 2011-2012.  The report said that global milled rice production could be around 483.5 million tonnes, almost same as 2011, but less than the June forecast of 490.5 million tonnes.

“The milled rice production is expected to fall because of low output in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan,” FAO said.