Cuba is forced to import more than 400,000 tons of rice each year, 60% of the total amount of this dietary staple consumed on the island, according to official figures published Sunday by the daily Juventud Rebelde.
Global rice production is expected to touch 476 million tons in 2011, on the back of improved weather conditions, as the influence of La Niña is expected to neutralize by June, United Nation’s body FAO said.
Uruguay harvested a record crop of rice this year totalling 1.65 million tons and marked the second highest area planted with the cereal, 195.000 hectares compared to the 200.000 of eleven years ago.
Uruguay which does not harvest transgenic rice has been consolidating as a growing European Union supplier and is a traditional provider for Mexico and Middle East countries such as Iran and Iraq.
Brazil will harvest this year a record crop of 158.7 million tons, 6% higher than last year’s 149.7 million tons, according to the latest release from the country’s Geography and Statistics Institute, IBGE.
Rice production is expected to rise to 480 million tons in 2011, which is 3% higher than a year earlier, due to improved weather conditions, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation said on Monday.
Recent research has concluded that 10% of the rice sold in China’s markets is likely to be tainted with heavy metals, but agricultural experts said the pollution is confined to particular regions and there is no call for panic.
The world appears to be on the threshold of another green revolution in rice production as a result of an intensive, 12-year partnership between the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing and the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines.
Surging wheat prices drove international food prices up 5% last month in the biggest month-on-month increase since November 2009, FAO announced. The FAO Food Price Index (FPI) averaged 176 points in August, up nearly nine points from July, FAO said in its latest update on the global cereals supply and demand situation.
Japan’s food rice stockpiles may reach the highest level in eight years at the end of June 2011, leading to a price drop and planting curbs by growers next year. Private and government inventories are forecast to climb 2.5% to 3.24 million metric tons from 3.16 million tons a year earlier, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said in a report Wednesday.