Record global rice harvest forecast

Global rice production might rise to a record in the 2010 season following improved prospects in China, Cambodia and Thailand, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said yesterday.

Rough rice production might be 700.7 million tons, up about 3 million tons from a November estimate, the agency said. The forecast would be a 3 percent rise from the 2009 season, it said.

The price of rice might increase as a rally in the cost of wheat drove consumers to seek alternatives, Robert Zeigler, the director-general of the International Rice Research Institute, said on Thursday last week.

The record forecast depends on secondary harvests in the northern hemisphere in the next few months that would bring the 2010 season to a close, according to the FAO.

“Asia is anticipated to account for the bulk of the production increase despite several climatic setbacks,” the FAO said. “Larger crops are also forecast to be harvested in Africa, North America, Europe and Oceania.”

Thai rice prices, the benchmark for Asia, last week advanced to the highest in more than a month, according to the Thai Rice Exporters Association. The price of grade-B white rice rose to $558 (R4 037) a ton, it said on Wednesday.

Countries in Asia were estimated to have bought 15.4 million tons of rice in calendar 2010, almost 600 000 tons more than previously reported and 1.9 million tons more than in 2009, the FAO said.

International trade in calendar 2011 was likely to be 31.4 million tons, it said, slightly less than a year earlier.

International prices would be influenced by the return of major buyers into the market in coming months, while the effect of climate on secondary crops must be monitored, the report said. – Bloomberg