CHOICES
A publication of AAEA
India’s rice production over the past 15 years has been remarkable. According to the USDA, India is projected to become the world’s largest rice producer in the 2024/25 marketing year, surpassing China. India’s rice production performance is expected to persist as new agricultural practices and advancements are making Indian rice farming more resilient to weather conditions. India has also been the world’s leading rice exporter for over a decade. Since 2020, India has exported an average of 20 million metric tons (MMT) of rice annually, accounting for 35.7% of global exports (USDA-FAS, 2025). With its undisputed status as the largest global rice exporter, India’s influence on rice prices and food security worldwide is a key consideration for the global rice economy.
Despite its dominance in exports, rice remains India’s primary staple and a cornerstone of domestic food security. As such, national food security priorities often outweigh export interests. For the sake of safeguarding its domestic consumption and handling local prices, India has not hesitated to implement policies that threaten food security beyond its borders. India’s $63 billion in consumption subsidies over the past 3 years (World Trade Organization, 2015) and its history of export restrictions—such as bans on long-grain (non-basmati) rice from 2007 to 2011 and again in 2023–2024 (Valera et al., 2024)—highlight the Indian government’s choice to prioritize its food sovereignty over export performance.
Due to its dominant position in production and trade, India’s rice policy decisions are having a growing worldwide impact. As recently seen, the 2023–2024 export ban issued by the Indian government has exacerbated global food insecurity, leading to a 25% increase in the FAO long-grain rice price index in 2023. By 2024, the index had reached its second-highest level since 2008, when the last major rice crisis occurred (Gaubler and Mamun, 2023, 2024). Furthermore, following India’s recent rice export restrictions, rice prices have increased in African rice-importing nations compared to those in Asia (Antonio et al., 2025).
Regions with low or no rice production capabilities,which rely on India’s rice supply, face a serious threat to food security from India’s rice restriction policy. Such areas, especially those that import at least 75% of their rice from India—like Djibouti, Guinea, Benin, and Liberia in Sub-Saharan Africa and Nepal in Asia—could experience decreases in their per capita rice consumption (Baum and Klimek, 2023)
Given India’s growing influence in the global rice market, understanding how its future production path could affect international prices is crucial. In this article, we use the Arkansas Global Rice Model (Wailes and Chavez, 2011) to simulate long-grain rice prices—the most produced and traded type globally—under three alternative production scenarios for India:
• USDA: USDA Agricultural Projections to 2034 (USDA-ERS, 2025a)
• OECD: OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2024–2033 (OECD, 2024)
• UARK: University of Arkansas International Rice Baseline Projections 2024–2034 (Durand-Morat and Mulimbi, 2025)
Our goal is to highlight the behavior of the international rice price, known as the “Thai 100% B” for the long-grain rice type, over the next decade based on the three reported projections for Indian rice production.
Figure 1 shows India’s historical rice production from 2014 to 2023 (USDA-FAS, 2025) and projections from the three sources. Examining the three scenarios, we found that the lowest rice production pathway for India is projected by the OECD from 2024 to 2033, which is reflected in the international Thai 100% B pathway depicted in Figure 2. The USDA projection of India’s rice production from 2024 to 2034 is lower than that of UARK in 2024 but higher by 2034. This is reflected in the fact that the USDA induced international Thai 100% B price is higher than that of UARK at the beginning of the decade and lower by 2034 (Figure 2). While all projections converge in the long term, there are notable differences in the short term. The OECD-FAO projects consistently lower output compared to USDA and UARK projections throughout the next decade.
Figure 2 presents historical (USDA-ERS, 2025b) and projected international prices for long-grain rice, usingThailand’s 100% B grade as a reference. The priceexceeded $600 per metric ton (MT) in 2023 and is expected to decline, although projections vary widely. The OECD-FAO’s lower production scenario yields the highest projected prices, whereas UARK’s outlook corresponds to lower prices in the short and medium terms. Our three India rice production scenarios illustrate the influence of their rice supply on driving price changes.
Short-term price uncertainty remains high. For instance, in 2025, international rice prices are expected to range between $442/MT and $582/MT, depending on the production scenario. Prices are expected to strengthen in the medium term, remaining above $520/MT from 2029 onward.
These findings underscore the growing sensitivity of global rice prices to India’s production trends and trade policies. Even under assumptions of continued production growth, international prices are projected to remain high, above $500/MT for much of the forecast period. Disruptions in India’s rice production (e.g., from abnormal monsoons) or shifts in trade policy will have increasingly significant consequences for global food security. For rice-importing countries, especially those where rice is a staple, this should serve as a warning to take action to strengthen domestic production and to develop sound import strategies, such as building up reserves in the short term to capitalize on competitive prices. This is particularly important for many Sub-Saharan African countries, which, despite achieving significant growth in rice production since the last rice crisis, still heavily depend on rice imports to meet their growing domestic demand.
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Wailes, E., and E. Chavez. 2011. 2011 Updated Arkansas Global Rice Model. University of Arkansas. Available online: https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.102650
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