Global Rice Shortage Is Set To Be The Biggest In 20 Years

• From China to the U.S. to the European Union, rice production is falling and driving up prices for more than 3.5 billion people across the globe, particularly in Asia-Pacific – which consumes 90% of the world’s rice.
• The global rice market is set to log its largest shortfall in two decades in 2023, according to Fitch Solutions. A deficit of this magnitude for one of the world’s most cultivated grains will hurt major importers, analysts told CNBC.
• “At the global level, the most evident impact of the global rice deficit has been, and still is, decade-high rice prices,” Fitch Solutions’ commodities analyst Charles Hart said. Rice prices are expected to remain notched around current highs until 2024, stated a report by Fitch Solutions Country Risk & Industry Research.
• The price of rice averaged $17.30 per cwt (one hundredweight) through 2023 year-to-date, and will only ease to $14.50 per cwt in 2024, according to the report.
• There’s a short supply of rice as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine, as well as bad weather in rice-producing economies like China and Pakistan. In the second half of last year, swaths of farmland in the world’s largest rice producer China were plagued by heavy summer monsoon rains and floods. The likely impact of this is that it could put some upward pressure on food prices that have been on a downward trajectory for the past twelve months.

 (Source: CNBC)