Why Asia faces a looming ‘rice crisis’ amid ‘inevitable’ price rises

A farmer operates a harvesting machine in a rice field in central China’s Hunan province this month. China has been stockpiling grains to ensure domestic food production.Rice prices are heading upwards, world food experts have warned, as soaring fertiliser costs look set to weigh on yields of a crop that’s a staple for at least two billion people across Asia.

Russia, Ukraine and Belarus were major exporters of nitrogen-based fertilisers before the war, but the combined effect of the conflict and soaring gas prices has hit exports from all three nations. Nitrogen-based fertilisers are now trading at prices last seen in 2008. Analysts said China, which was the world’s top exporter of phosphate fertilisers before imposing restrictions last year that it has yet to lift, and India were insulated from some of the worst effects of the crisis by protectionist policies and rice stockpiling.As recently as April, the ready availability of rice had led the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Bank to conclude that the crop’s prices would fall in the second half of this year.

He warned leaders of the Group of Seven club of rich nations that “the war’s impact on the global food and fertiliser supply chain is real”, Retno said, and urged them to support the reintegration of Russian and Ukrainian food and fertiliser supplies into the global economy. Last year, India imported about 15 per cent of the ammonia it used to make nitrogen-based fertilisers from Russia, which also accounted for about 10 per cent of Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia ’s fertiliser imports and more than 15 per cent of Indonesia’s.

“Even within farms, farmers may rebalance their fertiliser application across their fields to mitigate the impacts of the reduction,” he said.

Source: Digital Coin News (digitalcoinnews.net)

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