Rice output may hit record 151 million tonnes in 2025-26 season: USDA

USDA raises India's 2025-26 rice output estimate to a record 151 million tonnes due to early monsoon, good soil moisture and a hike in minimum support price

India’s rice production in the coming 2025-26 crop marketing season is estimated to touch an all-time high of 151 million tonnes, said the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

 

This would be due to early monsoon onset, abundant precipitation in the soil and the government's higher minimum support price (MSP) for farmers, it said in its latest assessment.

 

In its May assessment, the USDA had pegged 2025-26 rice output at 148 million tonnes (MT), making India the world's largest producer, surpassing China, which produced 146 MT.

 

The June assessment shows that the crop size could be even higher in 2025-26.

 

The government’s official estimate had pegged 2024-25 (July 2024 to June 2025) rice production at 149 million tonnes, according to the third advance estimate released a few weeks ago.

 

The latest assessment also shows that India is expected to export a record 25 million tonnes of rice in the world markets in 2025-26. This would be up from 24 million tonnes projected in May. 

 

The USDA comes out with monthly projections on world supplies of major agriculture commodities. The present estimate of milled rice production in India is based on the June assessment.

 

Among other crops, the USDA said India’s wheat production in 2024-25 has been raised to 117.5 million tonnes in line with the third advance estimate of the government.

 

The optimism on rice production in 2025-26 is mainly fuelled by early onset of southwest monsoon this year and the ‘above-normal’ forecast.

 

The Met department — in its second forecast for the 2025 monsoon season last month — said that rains are expected to be 106 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA). This is up from the April prediction of 105 per cent of the LPA.

 

The LPA of the monsoon rainfall over the whole country for 1971-2020 is 87 cm.

 

Not only that, the Met department said that monsoon in almost all the homogenous regions of the country except North-East and parts of Bihar would be normal to above-normal this year.

 

Only Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya could get ‘below normal’ rains this year, the IMD’s regional forecast said.

 

A few weeks ago, the Centre raised the MSP of paddy for the 2025-26 season by a modest 3 per cent, the lowest in five years. The hike was modest as the government granaries are filled with rice.