Production of rice in Bangladesh may decline marginally this year mainly due to negative impact of flood, according to the latest forecast of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.
FAO projected that annual output of rice in Bangladesh would decline to 34.1 million tonnes in the current year which was 34.7 million tonnes in 2016. Thus, rice output is projected to decline by 1.72 per cent.
“A sequence of floods also dampened the outlook for Bangladesh, likely translating into a third successive season of little or negative production growth,” said the latest food outlook released last month.
Bangladesh is now the fourth largest rice producer after China, India and Indonesia.
The UN body, however, expressed some optimism on recovery of rice production in the next year.
“Barring major setbacks, production recoveries could instead permit Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to slightly lower their 2018 imports to 1.1 million and 450000 tonnes, respectively,” it added.
FAO also forecasted that global rice production in 2017 would almost remain stable at 500.8 million tonnes which was estimated 501 million in last year.
Regarding the utilisation of rice as food, FAO said that global rice utilisation would expand by 1.1 per cent in the next year and non-food uses of rice are forecasted to change little year-on-year.
“Although use of rice as animal feed is being sustained by the release of supplies from government granaries in Japan, the Republic of Korea and Thailand, more affordable feedstuffs are expected to displace rice in most other countries, especially in Bangladesh, China (Mainland) and Vietnam,” it added.
The report further added that global rice inventories would slightly increase, by 0.4 per cent to 169.2 million tonnes.
It also added that Bangladesh, Iraq, Nigeria and the Philippines were all predicted to replenish their inventories in next year.
End//AK