Rice farmers curtailed plantings by nearly 2 percent in the face of dry weather caused by the El Niño weather pattern, leading to the smallest world rice crop in four years. The 2015/16 crop of 417.1 million tonnes also is 2-percent smaller than in 2014/15, says the monthly Rice Outlook.
“At 157.7 million hectares, global rice area is projected to be 3.0 million hectares below a year earlier and the second year of a decline,” says the USDA report. “Much of this decline is due to adverse weather attributed to El Niño.”
India, the world’s second-largest rice producer, consumer and exporter, is forecast to harvest 103 million tonnes of the staple grain this year, up 3 million tonnes from earlier forecasts thanks to higher yields on irrigated land in the north and north-central parts of the country. Last year, the crop was 105.48 million tonnes. “The weak 2015 monsoon did adversely impact the rain-fed kharif crop and will likely hinder the dry-season irrigated rabi crop due to lack of water in reservoirs,” said the USDA. The kharif crop usually amounts to 85 percent of India’s crop; the harvest was completed during February.
The U.S. rice crop of 192.3 million hundredweight (6.11 million tonnes) is down 13 percent from the previous year due to smaller plantings and lower yields. Plantings fell 11.5 percent in 2015 because of “weather-related problems in the Delta early in the growing season and long-term drought in California and Texas.” Long-grain rice accounted for all but a sliver of the decline in production.