Rice supply, demand and exportable surplus in India : Present vis-à-vis thirty years ahead

The study presents a profile of rice in India and classifies different rice producing states based on productivity into high, medium and low yielding states. State wise area, production and yield (APY) data for the year 2018-19 indicates the typical concentration of rice cultivation in the eastern and southern Indian states but lowest yield in eastern states. During 1950-51 to 2018-19, rice production witnesses an average growth of 2.45 per cent per year. The study projects the future demand and supply of rice for the year 2020, 2030, 2040 and 2050 based on historical data on APY; NSSO data on per capita consumption of rice and population forecasts of the United Nations (UN) for India. Projected estimates indicates that Indian rice production may attain about 160 million tonnes by the year 2030 and 259 million tonnes during 2050. Further, the supply-demand differences for future indicates that, India would retain surplus of about 62 million tonnes of rice by the year 2050 after meeting the consumption demand of 1.65 billion population. Further, on the policy issue on dipping rice area in the country, it was also assessed that had the rice area remains the same as in 2018-19, yield level need to be increased by about 1.83 t ha-1 and if rice area decreases by 15 per cent, incremental yield to fed the burgeoning population would be around 2.62 t ha-1 during the year 2050.