RT Vol. 8, No. 3 Rice facts

7/31/2019 RT Vol. 8, No. 3 Rice facts

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43Rice Today July-September 2009

RICE FaCTS

“rice is life” truly lives upto its meaning in India, where its origin dates back to as long ago as

2500 B.C. In this vast country, riceis a staple food for more than half

of its billion-plus population, and asource of livelihood for more than 50million households. Apart from itseconomic and strategic importance,rice is also deeply engraved in therich Indian tradition and culture.Rice offerings are common on many auspicious occasions to bring goodhealth and prosperity to family members. Families bless newlywedcouples by showering rice on theirheads for prosperity and good luck ( photo above). The signicanceof rice extends beyond life formany Indian communities. Riceis used in many rituals, includingofferings of it to the departed soul.

While growing up in a smalltown in eastern India, we werefrequently reminded by our parentsnot to waste rice as it would alienate Lakshmi , the Hindu goddess of wealth, fortune, and abundance.Numerous such instances can becited to bolster the cultural and

social signicance of rice in India.On the global front, India has the

largest area under rice cultivation, but falls behind China in terms of volume of production. In the past50 years, Indian rice production hasnearly tripled with the introductionof semidwarf modern varietiesas part of the Green Revolutiontechnology package. During thisperiod, production has been ableto keep up with population growth,

with a steady increase in per capitaproduction throughout the GreenRevolution era in the 70s and 80s, before attening out in the 90s andnally declining in the 21st century (Fig. 1). An overlay of per capita

consumption on per capita productionclearly reveals that consumption was a shadow of production until theearly 90s. But, since then, per capitaconsumption has been decliningat a faster rate than per capitaproduction—making India a rice-surplus country. The decrease in riceconsumption, which started in theearly 90s, coincided with economicreforms and trade liberalizationthat resulted in higher economicgrowth and diversication fromrice to more high-value products.

The decline in average per capitarice consumption enabled India to become the second-/third-largest riceexporter in the world, accounting foras much as 20% of the market sharein some years. It is also interesting

to note that strong economic growthin the past decade resulted in thediversication of the food basketaway from rice for all income groups(Figs. 2 and 3). Furthermore, percapita rice consumption amongthe lower income groups of boththe urban and rural populationalso dropped over this period.

Despite the decline in per capitarice consumption, however, totalconsumption continued to climb because of growing population.The drastic drop in production in

by Dr. Samarendu Mohanty Head, IRRI Social Sciences Division

A look at

INDIA



44 Rice Today July-September 2009

2002 and 2003 because of drought

made buffer stocks fall to a level not witnessed in decades. During thisprecarious food situation, the onsetof a global food crisis prompted thegovernment to protect the domesticsupply by imposing a ban onnonbasmati rice exports in late 2007. Although the export ban was laterreplaced by a minimum export pricefor a few months, the governmenteventually re-imposed the ban inearly 2008.

Current situation

According to USDA estimates,India is expected to harvest anotherrecord crop in 2008-09 afterharvesting around 97 million tonsin 2007-08. Domestic consumptionis also projected to rise by around2% this year. The continuing banon nonbasmati rice has loweredrice exports for the second yearin a row, from 5.5 million tons in2006-07 to a projected 2.5 milliontons in 2008-09. Lower exports

and record production havecontributed to rebuilding the stock from 8.5 million tons in 2004-05to 17 million tons in 2008-09.

Although the situation hasimproved—consecutive record crops were produced and buffer stocks weregradually rebuilt—India continues

to play it safe by keeping the export ban on nonbasmati rice. Continuinguncertainties in the global food andnancial markets have also forcedthe government to be absolutely risk averse before the April-May 2009general election. However, it is widely believed in the trading circle thatthe export ban will be lifted in thesecond half of 2009 to free up storagespace for the upcoming kharif crop.

A simple comparison of rice retailprices in two major Indian markets

(Hyderabad and Coimbatore) with thatof the Philippines, the largest importerof rice in the world, revealed someinteresting ndings. Between October2007 and January 2009, rice prices inCoimbatore and Hyderabad increased by 33% and 55%, respectively,compared with a 26% increase in thePhilippines (Fig. 4). In some Indianmarkets, rice prices nearly doubledduring this period. This may imply that the export ban has not been very effective in keeping rice prices low in the Indian domestic market. Eventhen, the government decision torestrict rice exports is logical basedon the simple fact that rice is morethan just a staple food in India, wherepolitical bigwigs hotly debate itsaffordability and availability.

Future challenges As India moves into the future, itis almost certain to assume thathigher income will bring about

diversication of the food basketfrom cereal staples to more high- value products with a continuingdownward slide of per capita riceconsumption for people from alleconomic spectra. At the same time,it is also safe to assume that therate of diversication will be muchslower than what we have witnessedin China and in other East Asiancountries during their developmentprocess. The ongoing nancial



45Rice Today July-September 2009

crisis may also slow down the rateof diversication even further.

Thus, total domestic riceconsumption may still rise inthe next decade with the UnitedNations (UN) projecting another160 million people by 2020 addedto India’s current population baseof 1.2 billion. Using the populationprojections from the UN and GDPprojections from the InternationalFood Policy Research Institute, ourown estimate indicates that Indiandomestic rice consumption willincrease by 13 million tons of milledrice by 2020. The real question is,can Indian rice production increase by at least 13 million tons or more inthe next decade to meet the domesticdemand and maintain the status of an exporter in the global rice market?If current yield growth continues,and rice area remains at the 2008-09 level, India is likely to produce anadditional 15 million tons of milledrice by 2020, which will be goodenough to meet domestic demand.

Among the various and mostglaring emerging uncertainties thatcan derail this outcome, however, aregrowing water shortages, imbalancedfertilization, competition for riceland from nonagricultural uses and biofuel crops, increasing frequency of extreme weather, and emerging pestoutbreaks. Depending on the extentof these problems, production growthin the future may fall well below the baseline projections. Currently,

imbalanced fertilizer applications infavor of nitrogen because of a subsidy

are widespread in India, whichadversely affects productivity andcauses higher incidence of pests anddiseases. The problem is much moresevere in Punjab and Haryana, whichhave the highest marketable surplusand which contribute the most tothe government procurement stocks.Subsidization of selected fertilizers hasalso led to fertilizer rations in many states, resulting in excess applicationin northern states and suboptimumapplication in many eastern andnortheastern states (200 kg/ha inHaryana and Punjab versus 10 kg/hain Arunachal Pradesh). A rapidly depleting water table in many northernstates is also a matter of concern forfuture productivity growth.

On the positive side, the recentintroduction of Sub1 or ood-tolerantmodern varieties in India, wherearound 5 million hectares of riceland are prone to ash ooding,allows the rice plant to survive up to

2 weeks under water (see Scuba riceon pages 26-31 of Rice Today Vol. 8,No. 2). This period is long enough tocompletely destroy the traditional non-submergence-tolerant modern varieties. According to IRRI estimates, theseSub1 varieties have the potential toincrease production by up to 4 milliontons in India and Bangladesh. Similarly,IRRI’s rst drought-tolerant variety,IR74371-70-1-1, which was recently recommended for release in India, and

a few more drought-tolerant varieties inthe pipeline, if successful, could have aneven bigger impact on production thansubmergence-tolerant varieties. The rice varieties developed for salt tolerancethrough collaborative research at IRRIand Indian research centers are alsomaking an impact on the 6.7 million

hectares of salt-affected area. Another yield booster, hybrid

rice, appears to have picked up itspace after an extremely slow startfor more than a decade since itsintroduction in the mid-1990s.USDA estimated that hybrid ricearea in India increased from 10,000hectares in 1995 to 1.3 millionhectares today. It is expected thatthe area under hybrid rice willlikely continue to grow at a fasterpace in the near term because of

several promising hybrid seeds beingdeveloped by private companies, andalso because of the government’sefforts to expand hybrid rice areato 3 million hectares by 2011.

A combination of appropriatepolicy reforms and new technologies,particularly the development anddiffusion of stress-tolerant varieties,can put Indian rice production back on track to ensure food security for the vulnerable in the future. A recent policy reform to lower theprice disparity between straightand complex fertilizers is a movein the right direction to promote balanced fertilizer application. Theintroduction of a uniform freightsubsidy scheme for all subsidizedfertilizers will also likely help improveavailability in all parts of the country.Eventually, the government will haveto deal with the sustainability of thefertilizer self-sufciency programin the face of a rising subsidy bill,

which jumped from US$5.8 billion in2006-07 to a whopping $22 billionin 2008-09. Similarly, free waterand electricity for farmers in many states need a careful examinationto make sure that enough incentivesare built into the system to minimize wastage of groundwater.

* The author thanks Drs. A. Dobermann, R.K. Singh

A. Kumar, D. Brar, and A. Padhee for some excellent

contributions.

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RT Vol. 8, No. 3 Rice facts