India’s new ban on rice exports: Potential threats to global supply, prices, and food security

On July 20, India announced that it would restrict exports of non-basmati rice to calm domestic rice prices that had risen more than 30% since October 2022 (Figure 1). The ban would halt overseas sales of the grain with “immediate effect,” the government announced, and is estimated to cover about 75%-80% of Indian rice exports.

The ban is the latest blow to the global rice market, whose prices have risen 15%-20% since September 2022—this coming after a period of relative stability in the earlier part of that year, even as prices of other cereals were soaring due to the Russia-Ukraine war. Over the past 15 years, India has become the world’s largest rice exporter, accounting for 40% of global rice exports in 2022/23, so any move it makes can have significant market reverberations.