INDIA – The price of parboiled rice in India has had a sharp increase of US$4 to US$404-US$407 per tonne, due to heavy rainfall in the main rice growing regions.
The delays experienced after the rains contributed to the increase in price.
According to Reuters, a major rice exporting country like Vietnam had also witnessed heavy rain fall which had resulted in high price and scarce supply.
“Key producing regions in southern and eastern India received rains in last few days.
This has delayed harvesting of the summer rice crop,” said an exporter based in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
“In some districts crop was damaged. Rainfall could reduce production,” he added.
According to farm ministry estimates, the production from summer-sown crop in India, the world’s biggest rice exporter, is likely to fall 2% to 94.48 million tonnes.
“I’m not sure how much crop yield we would get from the current autumn-winter season, to be harvested in November. But the large amount of rain would affect crop quality,” a trader said.
“Meanwhile, sowing for the next winter-spring season could be late because it rained a lot and would take longer for the flood to go down.”
In Thailand, prices fell due to low overseas demand, while the trend of supply is upwards despite rains and floods in some parts of the country, traders said.
“The rains and floods have not caused much damage to rice crops, but, alternatively have caused a fertile environment for crops in the future; so the trend of supply is on the rise,” said a Bangkok-based rice trader.
