By Chris Lyddon.

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, US – Slow demand in a well-supplied market has pushed global rice prices down in recent weeks. Buyers have held back as new crops increase availability.

The International Grains Council (IGC) said in its March 20 Grain Market Report that “ample spot availabilities and generally weak buying interest continued to pressure international rice markets,” reporting a 3% overall fall in prices.

“In Thailand, 5% broken fob quotations fell by US$10, to US$403 fob (Bangkok), the lowest in two and a half years,” the IGC said. “Export values in India and Pakistan also softened in largely thin trade, while prices in Vietnam were little changed, with sales to regular buyers providing mild support.”

The IGC said the steepest declines were evident in South America, where harvesting of 2024-25 crops boosted availabilities. Uruguayan 5% broken fob values retreated by $60, to $598 fob.

The USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) also reported price declines. In its Rice Outlook report of Feb. 13, the ERS said “over the past month, quotes for trading prices for most grades of regular (neither parboiled nor aromatic) whole-grain milled rice from Thailand decreased 10% to 11%, and Vietnam’s price quotes dropped about 6% from a month earlier.”

“Price quotes from other Asian sources dropped as well,” ERS added. “In South America, price quotes declined from all reporting countries, with Argentina’s quotes dropping the most.”

The US experts said that price quotes for US milled long-grain and California milled medium- and short-grain rice also declined over the past month but noted that “US long-grain milled rice prices remain well above quotes from South American sources.”

Prices in the month of February were down by 6.8%, reaching 24.7% below their level of February 2024, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said, noting that was at its lowest level since April 2022.

“Export prices weakened in all the major market segments in February, except in the Glutinous market, where they edged somewhat above their January levels thanks to local demand in Thailand and Chinese purchases,” FAO said.

The United Nations body noted that “declines were especially sharp for Indica quotations, which fell 7.7% below their January levels to two-and-a-half-year lows, with month-on-month falls of 5.4% for Aromatic and 3.1% for Japonica rice, “in both cases largely reflecting quiet trading activities.”

“Export prices of Indica rice continued to weaken across Asia in February, as fresh demand remained limited,” FAO said. “Indeed, notable demand-side developments were few during the month, with continued purchases by Bangladesh proving insufficient to compensate for Indonesia’s retreat from the market and for a slowdown in orders from other buyers, many of whom met their immediate needs through substantial purchases in the latter part of 2024.

“Supply-side factors also weighed on sentiment, namely progress of the winter-spring harvest in Vietnam and favorable prospects for offseason crops in India and Thailand.”

It noted that the weakness of the rupee against the US dollar also influenced prices downward, despite some support being lent to quotations by a recovery in volumes domestically procured by the Indian government.

“In the Americas, prospects of increased competition with the MERCOSUR origins and trade policy uncertainties also kept quotations of US #2, 4% on a downtrend,” it said.In the MERCOSUR countries of South America, FAO said efforts to free room for 2025-26 crops, now at the harvesting stage, weighed on prices, even though “in Brazil, falls tended to be capped by the real’s sustained recovery against the United States dollar.”

Published Date: March 25, 2025