India's Non-Basmati Rice Exports Grow By 109 Per Cent To $6.115 Billion In Last Eight Years

India’s non-basmati rice exports witnessed a growth of 109 per cent from $2,925 million in FY 2013-14 to $6115 million in FY 2021-22, the Commerce Ministry said in a release on Wednesday (20 April).

As per Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCIS) data, India, which is the world’s second-largest rice producer after China, had exported non-basmati rice worth $2,015 million in 2019-20, which rose to $4,799 million in 2020-21 and $6,115 million in 2021-22, the ministry said.

India exported rice to over 150 countries across the globe in 2021-22, as per the DGCIS data.

Highlighting the historic achievement in a tweet, Union Minister for Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal said that Modi government’s policies helped farmers to get access to the global markets and also ensure food security.

Registering a growth of 27 per cent in 2021-22, export of non-basmati rice was the top forex earner among all agri-commodities, at $6,115 million.

“In collaboration with our foreign missions, we have coordinated development of logistics as well as focus on production of quality produce, which has boosted India’s rice exports prospects,” said M Angamuthu, Chairman, Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA).

West African country Benin is one of the major importers of non-basmati rice from India. Other destination countries are Nepal, Bangladesh, China, Cote D’ Ivoire, Togo, Senegal, Guinea, Vietnam, Djibouti, Madagascar, Cameroon Somalia, Malaysia, Liberia, UAE etc, according to the ministry.

In 2020-21, India shipped non-basmati rice to nine countries - Timor-Leste, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Zimbabwe, Burundi, Eswatini, Myanmar and Nicaragua, where exports were carried out for the first time or earlier the shipment was smaller in volume.

India’s thrust on expanding port handling infrastructure, development of value chain involving key stakeholders along with efforts to explore new opportunities in countries or markets for rice exports in the last couple of years have led to a huge spike in rice exports, the ministry said.

The major rice producing states in the country are West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Assam, and Haryana.

The ministry said that as per Second Advance Estimates for 2021-22, the total production of rice during 2021-22 is estimated at record 127.93 million tonnes, which is higher by 11.49 million tonnes than the last five years’ average production of 116.44 million tonnes.