With the rising demand for Indian basmati rice, premium quality rice amid arrival of ramadan season in the upcoming weeks, the total exports of the country has touched record levels.
India's basmati rice exports stood at a record 3.21 million tons in 2011-12 against 2.18 million tons previous year. While, with the fall in rupee against US dollar, the export revenue grew 29% during the period to $3.22 billion against $2.49 billion last year.
This is likely to encourage farmers to grow more of basmati rice for 2012-13 especially in the current situation, where the major paddy areas in North India is experiencing deficient rainfalls. Als the removal of Minimum Export Price (MEP) and also China's decision to import basmati rice is supporting the farmers.
Basmati rice crop requires almost half the amount of water for cultivation compared other rice varieties.
Acreage under basmati rice in Punjab this year is expected to reach 750,000-800,000 hectares (ha) compared to 680,000 ha last year and targeting 2.8 million ha under paddy. While in Haryana, area under premium rice variety is expected to rise to 60-65% of the total paddy area of 1.8 million ha.
According to analyst, the exports in 2012-13 may also hit record in both in volume terms and in value terms.
In 2011-12, India produced around 7.5 million tons of basmati rice.
India is the major producer of basmati rice and accounts for almost 70% of the world produce and nearly two-third of the country's produce is exported. Major consumers of Indian basmati rice are Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Kuwait.
Basmati rice in Global market is priced at $1,100-1,150 a ton, as against $800-900 a ton earlier.
Presently, India is the top rice exporter in world with total shipments, including both basmati and non-basmati, stood at 7.3 million tons in 2011-12.
Source: Commodity Online