While ASEAN’s staple food is rice, there has been increased demand for wheat, soybean and maize over the past decade — an increase that ASEAN production cannot meet.
Rice is responsible for 10% of global methane emissions, and in Southeast Asia, one the world’s major rice bowls, rice cultivation accounts for as much as 25-33% of the region’s methane emissions.
Thailand could drop to the world’s third largest rice exporter, after Vietnam and India, as Thai rice exports slump to a decade low of 6.5 million tonnes.
Thai Rice Export Expected to Drop to 7.5m tons this year
This year’s projection for rice exports remains close to the previous year at 7.5 million tons, the lowest in seven years since 2013 when Thailand exported 6.6 million tonnes of rice.
