Rice output to rise 12%: FAO

India’s rice output is likely to rise 12.36 per cent this year, on favourable pattern of monsoon and higher acreage area, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) latest food review forecast released yesterday. The agency estimated India’s total milled rice output at 100 million tonnes (mt) this year, as against 89 mt the previous year.

Global rice production is estimated to reach 467 mt, compared with 472 mt foreseen at the beginning of the season in June. It is still 11 mt above the 2009-10 level. The downgrading of the global rice production outlook is due to the La Niña weather anomaly that has prevailed since mid-2010.

Despite higher production, rice availability for world trade will be limited, due to restrictions imposed by several countries, including India and Egypt. India banned premium rice exports last year to control inflation.

In 2011, global rice utilisation, including food, fodder etc, is anticipated at 460 mt, which is 1.6 percent, or 7 mt, more than the current 2010 estimate. The bulk of the total rice utilisation will be used for human consumption, which is foreseen at 394 mt, as compared to 388 mt this year. Where volume of rice fodder will remain unchanged at 12 mt, others (including seeds, non-food industrial usage and waste) are forecast at 54 mt, as against 53 mt in 2010.

According to FAO, world rice production in 2010-11 would exceed global rice utilisation by 7 mt, which is expected to beef up global rice carryover stocks from 126 mt in 2010 to 133 mt in 2011, the highest-ever since 2002. Much of the increase will accrue to China and India, the two largest rice holders, with a combined 71 per cent of the total. Expectation of larger 2010-11 crops is much behind the anticipated build-up of 2011 inventories.

Unless India relaxes the ban, world supply for trade may remain limited, at least till 2010-11 secondary crops are harvested in March-April next year. Until then, world rice prices were likely to remain on a rise, especially in context of firm agricultural commodity prices and weak dollar, FAO said.

The current estimate of 472 mt puts global production is 2.4 per cent more than in 2009-10, when adverse weather conditions depressed rice output in Asia.