India’s ban on rice exports raises fear of global food price rises | Hacker News Reader

India’s ban on rice exports raises fear of global food price rises

theguardian.com

155 pointsvanburen166 comments

India had a scorching summer and now heavy rains in many parts of the country. The government is just being prudent and ensuring sufficient local stock.

With the amount of rice and wheat stockpile India has on books it should not be affected. But elections are so close ruling government can't afford to take the risk of a shortage revealing half empty silo's.

Just last harvest states like Telangana had a glut of rice with no buyers. And now we have this. The whole procurement and storage chain is hopelessly mismanaged in India.

Yet only around 4.6-6% of total post harvest grain was lost due to storage reasons (according to NAAS). And 0.12% of post harvest wheat and rice (central and state stock) was lost due to storage reasons [0].

Maybe your conclusion applies to fruits or vegetables, of which there indeed considerable storage loss (promarily due to the cold temperatures needed iirc). But I don't think it applies to rice.

[0]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1147671/india-post-harve...

> Yet only around 4.6-6% of total post harvest grain was lost due to storage reasons

This only accounts for the loss after the grain is procured and not the loss between harvest and procurement. Given the practical challenges of measuring this, I doubt there's any quality data. I can only speak anecdotally but news reports about losses from poor makeshift storage arrangements while waiting for procurement are frustratingly common.

In a country as large as India, the frequency of such losses is bound to be greater than other countries. And a lot of channels exaggerate most news since it is hard to find actual news-worthy incidents that also happen to fit their agenda (which may be pro/anti BJP/congress, etc).

Then what is the major reason in case of rice. Statista link is behind paywall

It’s not just India. Trying to grow the right amount of any crop is insanely difficult for all farmers, no matter the region.

The problem is as old as agriculture itself and we've known the solution too for millinea: Store surpluses that can be used in lean years.

But in India procurement, storage and sale of agricultural produce are all wrapped up in a maze of Byzantine laws. As a result, availability of financing and infrastructure is abysmal. The first modern rice silos in the country are only expected to start operations in the next month or so.

The more markets worldwide connect to balance out local weather issues the more predictable the outcome. The problem however is international cooperation when there's global shortages.

Hence the futures markets.

Having no Buyers is politics. Reforms in farm law which would have opened up markets for farmers were repealed because of politics and protest by vested interests.

Having no buyers is economics. The supply vastly exceeded demand. There were no buyers, private or otherwise because there was glut. Telangana is an arid region. The recent jump in rice production is thanks to the new irrigation projects in the state.

The scrapped farm laws were ill-considered and I'll framed. Fun fact: Both, the Produce Trade and Commerce Act and the Agreement on Price Assurance Act expressly barred the jurisdiction of courts in entertaining disputes relating to farming disputes and instead gave authority to the local Collector to arbitrate. That's blatant and shameless executive overreach. And that's not even going into the fact that these Union laws intrude on what is explicitly a State subject.

Question: Would it be possible to store foodstuffs at close to 0 Kelvin at scale, indefinitely? Cryopreservation for food instead of people? Which foodstuffs "survive" long-term freezing? How large and economical could large-scale food cryopreservation be?

Depends entirely on the foodstuffs in question. Rice can be kept for around 10 years at 70f if you control moisture. If you can control for oxygen, it can last even longer at temps well above freezing. Corn and soybeans are more sensitive to temperature than rice, but the major factor is still moisture and oxygen exposure.

It reminds me a bit of the game Oxygen Not Included where early food storage techniques involve keeping it stored in an area saturated with CO2 to reduce the rate at which it rots before you have access to refrigeration.

Well, yes, it obviously is and there is no need to go that low. Don’t you have a freezer at your place?

Technically food in a cold enough freezer will never get uneatable. It is indeed flash frozen to preserve its texture. The issue is that quality tends to get down with time due to water sublimation.

Water sublimation stops at -80c, 193 kelvin. Flash freezing followed by long term storage in liquid nitrogen should be sufficient for preserving quality indefinitely.

More practically, while sublimation hurts "quality", it does not harm the nutritional value of the food, so does not seem like that big of a deal in the context of famine policy.

For rice it is even less of an issue, because rice is routinly stored dry and rehydrated when cooked.

I presume this would not be viable at the scale required for the people who need is most. (And zero kelvin is impractically cold)

Will preserved old rice tastes better than freshly harvested rice. Old rice is normally sold at a premium and preservation is much more simple.

For all those saying that this due to the climatic conditions, you’ll are only semi-wrong (/jk), as it has to do with political climate instead with the upcoming elections next year (those in power want to appease their electorate base with lower rice prices). This is also the second time this has occurred, the previous time it was from the other ruling party, and them by enacting the rice export ban then, put a lot of rice factories out of business due to the ensuing demand shock (I know someone whose entire family business of multiple factories had to shut down for good due to this).

I hope the irony of a UK newspaper complaining about India not exporting food is not lost on anyone.

I expect the trend to continue and get worse. India is on the verge of having serious issue with its food supply. To keep its share of importation stable, given the current population growth, the country needs its production to grow by 20% (by weight) in the next 25 years. That’s basically a bit more than 1% a year. The potential is definitely there but as far as I know the growth has been slightly under target for the past few years. I fully expect imports to rise and exports to be banned more and more often for the foreseeable future. Famine is unlikely but definitely a risk.

Indian agriculture is run as a jobs programme. If it modernised production, there is plenty of room for efficiency gains.

There definitely is. I don’t think it’s impossible at all. That’s what I meant by: “The potential is definitely there”. But mismanagement until it is too late is definitely a risk. The country should be able to solve that with some imports provided it wants to.

A lot of farming indians are extremely untrustworthy of "modernization" of farming because it means near total reliance on American megacorps that already abuse american farmers, let alone people in an entirely separate country with even lower means.

One, that’s totally untrue. Tractors, for instance, have nothing to do with American mega corps.

Two, whatever, the reasons manufactured to keep productivity low are irrelevant. The sector is being run inefficiently to keep a surplus of farmers employed. High food costs are a political choice.

This comment is so funny it's almost satire. Look at John deere to see how fun tractors can be.

> Look at John deere to see how fun tractors can be

Does John Deere have a global monopoly? Resisting modernisation because John Deere are dicks is textbook misdirection.

(Out of the top-ten selling tractors in India, John Deere has one—the 5510–on the list.)

Ironically, there’s some Indian tractor brands that sell well in the US (and are quite good bang for the buck).

It fortunately doesn't have a monopoly because Indias farmers are smarter then US farmers. That is independent of the fact that John Deere equipment is basically the highest tech you can get.

> doesn't have a monopoly because Indias farmers are smarter then US farmers

Still totally wrong. John Deere is a top-selling tractor, but it’s far from a monopoly. It’s optimised for large farms; with its technological supremacy it lets high labour cost American farms beat emerging-market farms on cost per calorie. Deere & Company has a power imbalance with small farmers, but nobody is forced to buy their tractors.

Sounds like you are saying that after a liberalization in attitudes toward modern farming, most Indian farmers wouldn't have to choose John Deere, only the Indian mega farms that would under cut them on price per calorie would have to?

I assume basmati is omitted because it is a higher margin crop sold mainly to wealthy Western countries?

Yes and mostly no. Its definitely a costlier rice but not unaffordable. My dad grow rice and he doesnt prefer the taste of basmati. Basmati is softer and longer but not as sweet as his favorite "sharbati" or IR24. It tastes bland with vegetables and curries. It has aroma but no flavor. Most farmers dont prefer basmati for daily usage even when they grow it. Also,per acre, basmati has not significant advantage over other varieties which can grow upto 2x basmati.

I live in city and now I prefer basmati because its less sweeter and softer. Weight gain has been a concern for me (not to my dad, he likes doing labor). Basmati also doesnt fit well with many traditional dishes, except for biryani I guess.

Cashew has become unaffordable locally because of high export demand. I find is mildly irritating. On the other hand, I earn quite well because of service export.

This is so true!

There's many different varieties of rice. The various regions of India use different varieites based on the type of food they cook.

I found this site that describes it if anyone's interested: https://sproutmonk.com/types-of-rice-in-india/

That is unfortunate about cashews, but I'm jealous to read of the choice of rice varieties - it's a funny world!

In the UK I think I'd have a hard time getting anything other than generic 'basmati' (which afaict just means Oryza sativa indica - it could be IR24, what you're calling basmati, anything else in the subspecies, or some blend with the yield & shelf-life & availability properties they wanted) that would be at all suitable for (my attempt at/interpretation of) 'Indian' food.

Whatever it is I suppose I subconsciously agree it's bland - I tend to cook it with some rai/jeera/ilaayachi/laung depending.

(Edit -) It just occurred to me that the cashew issue is probably not helped that they're hardly cheap here, largely eaten as a snack (roasted & salted) on their own - which supports a higher price, I suppose, than more common use as more of an ingredient (e.g. kaju katri, ground up in creamy dishes) in India.

> In the UK I think I'd have a hard time getting anything other than generic 'basmati'

It’s relatively easy to find any kind of rice in countries with significant East Asian diaspora like England provided you are ready to buy largish quantity (10kg). It’s highly likely there is an Asian market near you with a surprisingly large selection of rices (not necessarily on display) and which can get you other kinds if you order. It definitely is more involved than going to Tesco but far from impossible.

I do buy in 5-10kg bags (but admittedly takes me much longer to work through than it would an East Asian family) I've just never seen it specify a variety. Just different brands of 'basmati' (which as I said I think is used more generically here than it is up thread).

There's an insane amount of rice varieties in India.

There's an insane amount of everything varieties, you just don't often get much (or at least not explicit) choice at the point of purchase.

Potatoes are the biggest exception I can think of in the UK. Largely grown here! Could believe it's similar for retail rice in India for similar reasons. (That doesn't work for say wheat flour though. A lot grown here, but best you can do is pick your protein %. I'm also not sure if you should care about more than that though - milling aside.)

The special thing about this is that creating new rice cultivars are difficult. Indian farmers specifically discovered and developed techniques to prevent self-pollination and encourage cross-pollination. This allowed for an explosion of rice varietals.

In other words the special part here, along with the quantity, is that the process was deliberate and encouraged. There are like 110,000 identified cultivars of rice in India. There are special harvest festivals that specifically encourage the discovery of new rice varietals which are then shared in these festivals.

That's awesome. I'll definitely be looking out for something interesting sounding/local or just different to try or bring back next time.

At which point of sale? If you mean in some chain grocery store then I would agree with you, but if you go to any local rice merchant they have tons of varieties.

Well what I mean is that a lot of people don't have a 'local rice merchant' or aren't going there - so it's not 'often' much of a choice, i.e. across all points of sale.

I'm not talking about just India (nor just rice) if that's the confusion - I don't know where I'd personally go for a choice of basmati cultivars, but there's probably things (potatoes?) I have more choice of in the UK than there generally is in India.

Ah thanks for clarifying

Most Americans do not have access to local rice merchants.

There are an insane amount of rice varieties everywhere.

Basmati rice has generally lower arsenic content than the other rice types, at least those they sell here. That's the main reason I buy it, not really for the taste.

If you are concerned about arsenic in rice, then you should just wash your rice. It's quite effective

TIL that not only are there different kinds of rice, but people use certain types of rice with certain dishes. I just thought that rice is rice.

LPT if you’ve tried making fried rice at home, and it sucked, try medium grain. If you tried making sushi and it sucked try short grain.

There are even different ways to cook the same rice for use with different dishes. Sometimes you want sticky, sometimes you want mushy, sometimes you want the grains to stay individual, sometimes you want them to have a little bite…

Lol. Yesterday, I was making fun of my friend. He likes drinking and like to talk about various kind of drinks. I don't drink and wanted to change the topic: "alcohol is just alcohol!". He rolled his eyes.

I like making Kichdi once in a while and Basmati is awful for this dish. I have discovered the japanese Sushi rice takes my khichdi so much more wonderful. It is not good for the waistline but it is an indulgence for whenever I get sick.

Ha, it's so funny to me khichdi is a sick dish - I thought that was just my fiancée's family at first. She made some for me which I kept eating in good health, but she couldn't/wouldn't eat it herself, put off by that association.

The British kedgeree (which has its origin in khichdi but frankly is quite different - like a breakfast biryani of smoked haddock & boiled egg; generally no daal) doesn't at all share that.

Yeah, I think Khichri for sick is at least north Indian thing if not all Indian. In southern parts they make fancier khichri like pongal and stuff.

Also we used to cook Tehri/Tahari vegetables/ rice(non-basmati), heavy spices in pressure cooker. Though nowadays Biryani/Pulao has taken prominence.

Fascinating, thanks for the info!

The article says basmati accounts for 1/4th of the exports, yes it’s a higher yield crop, but basmati is consumed at a much much lower rate than let’s say sona masoori (at least in the south)

Yes and No.

There are many varieties of Rice and Basmati is just one of them. In India it is used only for special dishes like Biryani/Pulao/etc. and not as a all purpose everyday use Rice. And it is also a higher margin crop well-suited for exports.

It seems like a no brainer that western powers should defend the transport of Ukrainian grain. The shortage of food is going to cause such an immense problem in states like in Africa. Europe is going to have a terrible time with this.

Africa is not a state but a huge continent with many countries and diverse situations.

Thanks for the grammar check.

What do you propose, NATO escorting ships bound for Odessa and getting in an open armed conflict with Russia so that South Africa and other friends of Russia, avoid food shortages? Sorry, that ain't happening.

Best outcome would be if our man Erdogan can convince Putin to sign another grain deal in any other form, but I doubt it, because the latter made some outrageous requests to do so. Or if the West arms Ukraine with ground launched Harpoon missiles, so that the Kremlin chicken out and avoid exposing their Black Sea fleet to the same fate as Moskva's. There is also the solution of sending the ships through Romania and Bulgaria's territorial waters. Then the Russians can bitch about hidden weapons as much as they like.

> What do you propose, NATO escorting ships bound for Odessa and getting in an open armed conflict with Russia so that South Africa and other friends of Russia, avoid food shortages?

Yes. Fuck around and find out. Russia does not have the military capability to fight another war. They'd be complete idiots to attack a western warship. They would simply lose. You don't need to declare war to destroy a ship attacking yours.

Russia's threats are as idle as their constant nuclear threats.

Not happening. Warships are currently barred by Türkye from entering the Black Sea through the Bosphorus, unless returning to base. The only NATO warships that could escort civillian ships bound for Odessa are Turkish, Bulgarian or Romanian.

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/02/turkey-closes-t...

What might be happening is arming Ukraine with ground launched anti ship missile systems:

https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2023/06/polish-coastal-...

The Biden administration, along with the rest of NATO does not want to escalate and engage in a war with Russia. Not over Ukraine, not over the food security of Putin or Xi's partners. Egypt, Nigeria or South Africa not getting their grain only puts further pressure on the Kremlin to end this war.

Declarations of war have been exceedingly uncommon since the end of World War II.

> Not happening. Warships are currently barred by Türkye from entering the Black Sea through the Bosphorus, unless returning to base. The only NATO warships that could escort civillian ships bound for Odessa are Turkish, Bulgarian or Romanian.

Not true. Your own link states as much "the Turkish government appears to have exercised its rights under Article 21, which states that passage of warships should be wholly at the discretion of the Turkish Government when it feels itself to be threatened with imminent danger of war." At least in the sense that the US could publicly request to do this and Turkey would need to respond.

> The Biden administration, along with the rest of NATO does not want to escalate and engage in a war with Russia. Not over Ukraine, not over the food security of Putin or Xi's partners. Egypt, Nigeria or South Africa not getting their grain only puts further pressure on the Kremlin to end this war.

Agreed. Escorting grain ships is not a declaration of war. Nor is returning fire.

Note, these countries not getting grain raises food prices for everyone. This is problematic for most countries. Not Russia as Russia is food secure.

"but I doubt it, because the latter made some outrageous requests to do so."

Weren't these "outrageous requests" signed on in the parallel memorandum of understanding (MoU) ? They included removal of sanctions on the main Russian agricultural bank and Russian fertilizers. Russia has stated said as soon as those terms in the memorandum are implemented, they will resume the grain deal.

Good luck with that. It's essentially blackmail, just like with the "roll NATO back to 1991, remove anti ICBM systems from Eastern Europe" outrageous requests. It's easier and more effective to weaponize Ukraine and harden NATO's Eastern flank. The US in contrast with Russia respects the memorandums it signed, like the Budapest memorandum.

Those are outrageous requests. The very effective sanctions are a large part of their non-military punishment.

With global warming hitting hard, many countries can no longer afford to export food for various reasons.

This is true given the US’s case where we still export animal feed that was grown in the desert.

I'll only actually worry when Thailand bans hom mali rice exports.

India ban of rice export is partly because Thailand and nearby countries are also expected to have a bad crop this year which will put pressure on Indian rice prices. The first year probably should not be a problem but if it carries on to the next year then it could be bad in term of prices.

And after that happens, how long from the point where you worried to the point where a whole bunch of people starve?

Okay I'm properly worrying now. I'll throw in a couple more thoughts and prayers to change the mind of Modi while at it.

Welcome to the group, we meet alternate Thursdays and worry the rest of the time. For most of us that's as far as at goes. Some of us get all hyperfixated and might save the world, though.

Wouldn't it be great if their buddies the Russians weren't actively destroying grain shipments of the Ukrainians. Nice job guys.

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Sure, that probably is fair.

Incidentally, things seemed to have improved recently here in the past month or so.

I think there was a period in the prior 4-5 months where the conversation was a bit of a mess.

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