1. India's rice ban led to an increase in global food prices.
As the world's largest rice exporter, India's rice ban has affected global food prices. In the past year, the retail price of local rice in India rose directly by 1 1.5%, and rose by 3% in one month.
Last year, India's rice exports reached 22.2 million tons, accounting for more than 40% of the world's total exports, even exceeding the sum of some other rice exporting countries, such as Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan and the United States.
In this ban, the export of Indian fragrant rice has not been affected, but Indian broken rice has been affected. Because these two varieties directly account for nearly half of India's rice exports and are relatively cheap, the main exporting countries are African countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia and Angola. So for these African countries, the export ban of Indian rice may have an impact on rice prices in these countries.
The rising price of rice in the world makes many importers worry that the dry weather caused by El Ni? o will affect rice production, so they are hoarding a lot of rice. According to the relevant climate information released by the World Meteorological Organization, the El Ni? o phenomenon appeared for the first time in the tropical Pacific in seven years, which may lead to dry weather in Southeast Asia.
Although this phenomenon will bring rainfall to some parts of India, Thailand, as the second largest exporter of crops, will also be affected by this climate phenomenon, which may lead to drought.
Second, India's imposition of tariffs may lead to serious food inflation.
After India banned the export of broken rice, it imposed a 20% tariff on polished rice, husked brown rice, semi-polished rice and whole polished rice. Because of this export tariff, global rice and food prices are rising. Since the outbreak of the dispute between Russia and Ukraine, great changes have taken place in global food prices, especially the prices of wheat, corn and soybeans have all reached new highs.
The increase in Indian rice tariffs is undoubtedly reminiscent of the food crisis in 2008. At that time, India, as the second largest rice exporter in the world, introduced a rice ban, which led many Asian countries whose staple food is rice to follow suit and ban rice exports. As a result, the price of rice rose by 300% in just four months, and it has risen a lot in the first half of this year. Therefore, the implementation of new tariffs in India may lead to more countries restricting food exports, further leading to serious food inflation.
Third, the impact of the Indian rice ban on China.
Although the Indian rice ban has led to the increase of global food prices, it has little impact on China, because China has sufficient grain reserves and the broken rice is highly replaceable. China imports rice from India every year, but China is basically self-sufficient in grain and its rations are safe.
China chose to import Indian broken rice because China has quota restrictions on rice imports, but there are no quota restrictions on broken rice. After all, broken rice can be put into feed and made into other foods. Besides, it's autumn harvest season in China. Although the grain output is affected by summer drought and high temperature, the overall output is basically the same as last year.