Francis Ndege is unsure if his customers in the biggest slum in Africa can continue to afford to purchase rice from him.
Because of higher fertilizer costs and a prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa that has decreased production, prices for rice farmed in Kenya have recently increased. The shortage had been replaced by cheap rice imported from India, which fed many of the hundreds of thousands of people living in Nairobi’s Kibera slum on less than $2 per day.
However, that is altering. Since June, the cost of a 25-kilogram (55-pound) bag of rice has increased by 15%. Since India, the world’s top rice exporter by a wide margin, announced last month that it would halt some rice shipments, wholesalers have not yet received new supplies.
The world’s most populous country is making an effort to regulate domestic pricing ahead of a crucial election year, but it has left a huge gap of about 9.5 million metric tons (10.4 tons) of rice that people across the world require, or about a fifth of worldwide exports.
Ndege, 51, a 30-year rice vendor, expressed his hope that imports will continue.
He is not alone in this. Since Russia terminated a deal permitting Ukraine to export wheat and the El Nino weather phenomena reduce rice production, global food security is already in danger. The most vulnerable individuals in some of the poorest countries are now at risk as rice prices are rising, reaching a 15-year high, for example, in Vietnam.
Beau Damen, a natural resources officer with the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization headquartered in Bangkok, claimed that the globe is at an “inflection point.”
Prior to India’s limits, nations were feverishly stockpiling rice in preparation for a shortage when El Nino occurred, which would lead to a shortage and an increase in price.
If India’s prohibition on non-basmati rice has a cascading effect and other nations follow suit that might make the problem worse. To protect its internal supplies, the United Arab Emirates has already stopped exporting rice. Another danger is if severe weather destroys the rice crops in neighboring nations.
Climate change is intensifying El Nino events, which are a natural, sporadic warming of a portion of the Pacific Ocean that alters worldwide weather patterns. Scientists anticipate that the current one will reach supersized levels. In the past, they have caused extreme weather, from flooding to drought.
There would be an international influence. Africa’s use of rice has been gradually increasing, and the majority of its nations are severely dependent on imports. While developing countries like Senegal have been attempting to cultivate more of their own rice, many are having difficulty.
Amadou Khan, a 52-year-old father of five who is unemployed in Dakar, claims that he feeds his kids rice with every meal but mornings except when he is jobless.
I often have problems taking care of my kids,” he admitted. “I am just getting by.”
He consumes domestic rice instead of imported rice, which is now excessively expensive in Senegal, and comes from India 70% of the time.
Although the West African nation is not “far from being self-sufficient” in rice, with more than half of its need being domestically produced, Senegal will turn to other trading partners like Thailand or Cambodia for imports, according to Mamadou Acha Ndiaye, a spokesperson for the Agriculture Ministry.
Asian nations, where 90% of the rice consumed worldwide is grown, are having production issues. When Typhoon Doksuri tore through the northern rice-producing region of the Philippines, damaging $32 million worth of rice crops — an estimated 22% of its annual production — the country was carefully controlling water in anticipation of less rain during the El Nino.
As the world’s second-largest importer of rice behind China, the archipelago country needs sufficient buffers, as President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has emphasized.
The partial ban on rice in India was required to prevent food prices from rising as a result of an unreliable monsoon and a potential El Nino, according to Indian food policy specialist Devinder Sharma.
According to Ashok Gulati of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, the limitations will prevent the country from exporting roughly half of its typical rice this year. India is an unreliable exporter because of persistent limitations, he continued.
Gulati stated, “That’s not helpful for the export company since it takes years to create these markets.
Another significant exporter of rice, Vietnam, is looking to profit. The Southeast Asian country is attempting to maintain steady domestic prices while expanding exports with rice export prices at a 15-year high and hopes that yearly production would be somewhat higher than last year.
The Mekong Delta will soon have more than 500 square kilometers, or almost 90,000 football fields, more land dedicated to rice farming, according to the Agriculture Ministry.
The Philippines and Vietnam are already in negotiations on price reductions for the crop, and Vietnam is also looking to sell to the UK, which imports most of its rice from India.
However, exporters in neighboring Thailand, like Charoen Laothamatas, are cautious. The Thai government anticipates shipping 15% more rice this year than it did in the first six months of 2022, compared to last year’s exports.
However, Laothamatas, president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association, stated that due to uncertainty about what India will do next and worries about the El Nino, Thai exporters are reluctant to accept orders, mill owners are afraid to sell, and farmers have raised the price of unmilled rice.
Exporters are unsure of what pricing to quote due to price volatility because prices could increase the next day.
Nobody wants to take the chance, Laothamatas added.
