• India’s non-basmati rice exports have increased to $6.11 billion in 2021-22 from $2.92 billion in 2013-14.

• India exported rice to over 150 countries in 2021-22. 

• India is the world’s second-largest rice producer after China.

• India exported non-basmati rice worth $2 billion in 2019-20, which rose to $4.8 billion in 2020-21 and $6.11 billion in 2021-22, according to the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics data

• West African country Benin is one of the major importers of non-basmati rice from India. Other destinations include Nepal, Bangladesh, China, Ivory Coast, Togo, Senegal, Guinea, Vietnam, Djibouti, Madagascar, Cameroon, Somalia, Malaysia, Liberia and UAE. 

• 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 major rice-producing states are West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Assam, and Haryana. 

• As per Second Advance Estimates for 2021-22, the total rice production 2021-22 is estimated at a record 127.93 million tonnes, which is 11.49 million tonnes higher than the last five years’ average production of 116.44 million tonnes. Further, the production during 2021-22 is higher by 25.35 million tonnes than the previous five years’ (2016-17 to 2020-21) average production of food grains.

• The record exports would enable the rice producers to reduce their stocks. It would also benefit the farmers as the increased demand for Indian rice is likely to improve their realizations.

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