Rice as a Staple Food!

 India's top rice shippers are convinced the government will not follow other countries in adopting restrictions on seeds exports since the nation has more than enough supplies to satisfy domestic demand. Bumper crops will help the nation avoid curbs on overseas sales, according to some of the nation's key exporters. Since the coronavirus continues to spread across the Earth, panic buying and concerns over supply chain disruptions have contributed many states such as Vietnam, Russia and Kazakhstan, to quit exporting some staple foods to shore up supplies in the home. That has raised questions over whether India, the world's biggest exporter of rice, will follow suit. "India is not deficient in manufacturing and, at the immediate foreseeable future, there does not appear to be a cause for concern over food safety," stated Vijay Setia, manager at Chaman Lal Setia Exports Ltd., a rice miller and exporter. "We might have sufficient surplus for exports." Fears of shortages also have helped costs of Thai white rice 5% broken, an Asian export benchmark, surge more than 25 percent annually to $564 per ton on Wednesday, the greatest since 2013. Rough rice futures in Chicago are all around the strongest for almost six decades. Biryani, PilafDemand for Indian basmati rice, an aromatic grain used in dishes such as biryani and pilaf, has improved lately, largely in the U.S. and Europe, based on Ashwani Arora, chief executive officer of LT Foods Ltd.. There might also be an increase in demand from Middle Eastern countries, '' he said. "That might increase exports" in the financial year from April 1, Arora said. Global milled rice production will likely be little changed from a year before at 499.31 million tons in 2019-20, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Ending stockpiles are seen at a record 182.3 million tons, up about 4 percent from a year before, the data show. While global grain stocks are rather comfortable and the weather forecast this year fairly positive, states may adopt export restrictions or boost stockpiling if the snowball accelerate quicker than anticipated or when the harvest outlook deteriorates, Fitch Solutions stated in a report. India has imposed export curbs during comparable conditions in the past, it said. Though there aren't any concerns right now,"if the fear of the unknown prevails and markets get dented with hoarding etc., then of course respective governments must resort to means at their disposal to handle the situation," explained Setia, a former president of the All India Rice Exporters' Association, who has traded the product for at least four decades. "Imposing restrictions on external trade could be one such measure," he said. Shipments of rice have slowed a bit due to logistics problems, including a lack of employees and truck drivers, brought on by the nationally lockdown, said Vinod Kaul, the executive director of the association. Exporters are hesitating to sign new contracts with overseas buyers because of the downturn in present imports, '' he said. "The lockdown is going to have some effect and we can't avoid it," Kaul said. "There is not any movement by the authorities to ban exports."