{"id":24035,"date":"2025-12-30T13:30:56","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T13:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.selinawamucii.com\/news\/?p=24035"},"modified":"2025-12-30T13:30:57","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T13:30:57","slug":"rice-production-in-india-soars-past-chinas-despite-groundwater-drift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.selinawamucii.com\/news\/2025\/12\/30\/rice-production-in-india-soars-past-chinas-despite-groundwater-drift\/","title":{"rendered":"Rice production in India soars past China\u2019s despite groundwater drift"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>India is newly the rice production champ of the world in the 2024-25 fiscal year, overtaking China amid escalating groundwater crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The subcontinent\u2019s agriculture ministry announced on December 29 that annual rice output up to June 2025 was set to clock 149 million tonnes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This projection echoes the U.S. Department of Agriculture (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fas.usda.gov\/data\/production\/commodity\/0422110\"><u>USDA<\/u><\/a>)\u2019s 2024-25 production tally at 150 million tonnes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>China follows the USDA list with 145.28 million tonnes, which reflects a levelling off of the country\u2019s perennial number one status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Helping India along is robust minimum&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.selinawamucii.com\/insights\/prices\/india\/rice\/\"><u>rice price<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;which improved by about 70% in the 2015-25 decade, whetting cultivation interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With this ample rate, farmers not only feed a nation of 1.4 billion people but export an equivalent of 40% of global rice trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>High production momentum made India the top rice exporter at 20 million tonnes (2024-25), according to a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/sustainability\/climate-energy\/indias-domination-global-rice-trade-stokes-looming-water-crisis-2025-12-30\/\"><u>Reuters<\/u><\/a>\u00a0report of December 30, 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Avinash Kishore of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute told the news agency that exporting \u201cgives [India] a pivotal role in global trade.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-groundwater-a-hard-bargain\"><strong>Groundwater a Hard Bargain&nbsp;<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>But there is a bubbling underground crisis that could turn into a serious challenge in future production and exports, namely water scarcity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Northern states of Punjab and Haryana are not taking production prestige in their stride because of groundwater reduction there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two states depend more or less on borehole irrigation for their paddy but this resource is at an ebb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Punjab Agricultural University and state government officials cite that drainage has forced borehole diggers to drill&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tribuneindia.com\/news\/punjab\/india-overtakes-china-in-rice-production-but-punjab-haryana-farmers-remain-unhappy-here-is-why\"><u>80-200 feet<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;to chase retreating water.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Drainage has gained pace since 2020, even occasioning bans for digging new boreholes in some severely affected regions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Natural replenishment by aquifers has also been lagging behind the rate of extracting water from the ground. Each year, rice farmers from these two states tap 35-57% more groundwater than the renewal rate of aquifiers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Production is therefore drifting to southern states like Telangana, which produced 18.9 million tonnes of rice in 2025, the second highest nationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Telangana depends on a combination of monsoon rainfall and groundwater to grow paddy, thus eradicating strain on water extraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is unlike counterparts in the north where much of the 3,000 liters of water each kg of rice needs to thrive comes from boreholes.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To stopper this crucial water resource from dwindling further, Haryana has been offering 17,500 rupees ($194.60) as subsidy for growers to trial millet. Will this switch to other grains dent rice production in India from its current historical high? The following data section attempts an historical answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-india-rice-production-statistics\"><strong>India Rice Production&nbsp;<\/strong><strong>Statistics&nbsp;<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>For a long time, India has been the world\u2019s second biggest rice production center after China. This changed in the 2024-25 season when India topped output at 150 million tonnes or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fas.usda.gov\/data\/production\/commodity\/0422110\"><u>28%<\/u><\/a>\u00a0of the worldwide harvest, per the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). \u00a0Following suit was China at 145.28 million tonnes while Bangladesh (36.6 million tonnes) and Indonesia (34.1 million tonnes) clinched the top 4 spots.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>India represents&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/sustainability\/climate-energy\/indias-domination-global-rice-trade-stokes-looming-water-crisis-2025-12-30\/\"><u>40%&nbsp;<\/u><\/a>of the world\u2019s rice trade, apart from occasional years when it restricts exports of basmati. As a result of this high supply representation, the world\u2019s 2025-26 rice stock was set to reach&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vietnam.vn\/en\/kinh-te-2025-du-bao-2026-gia-gao-the-gioi-tiep-tuc-chiu-ap-luc\"><u>556.4 million tonnes<\/u><\/a>, above 2024-25\u2019s. Ample production in India, Russia and elsewhere would help counter falling 2025-26 harvests in Vietnam and Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How did India\u2019s rice 2025 production compare to 2024?<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>India\u2019s Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers\u2019 Welfare projected rice harvest for the year ending June 2025 at 149 million tonnes. This is about 8.12% more than that of the year ending June 2024 at&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/indiawest.com\/india-set-for-record-rice-and-wheat-harvests\/\"><u>137.8 million tonnes<\/u><\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Where does India export rice?<\/strong><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The top 5 export destinations of rice from India are either in Asia or Africa, per the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/wits.worldbank.org\/trade\/comtrade\/en\/country\/IND\/year\/2023\/tradeflow\/Exports\/partner\/ALL\/product\/1006\"><u>World Bank<\/u><\/a>\u2019s data interpretation below for 2023:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Export country<\/strong><\/td><td><strong>Export Value&nbsp;<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Saudi Arabia<\/td><td>$1.28 billion<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Iran<\/td><td>$734.3&nbsp;million<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Iraq<\/td><td>$732.9&nbsp;million<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Benin<\/td><td>$570.6&nbsp;million<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>UAE<\/td><td>$463.7&nbsp;million<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>World<\/td><td>$10.5 billion<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Fig:\u00a0<em>rice exports from India to the world, 2023<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India is newly the rice production champ of the world in the 2024-25 fiscal year, overtaking China amid escalating groundwater crisis. The subcontinent\u2019s agriculture ministry announced on December 29 that annual rice output up to June 2025 was set to clock 149 million tonnes. This projection echoes the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)\u2019s 2024-25 production&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v16.3 (Yoast SEO v20.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rice production in India soars past China\u2019s despite groundwater drift - Selina Wamucii | Food &amp; Agriculture News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.selinawamucii.com\/news\/2025\/12\/30\/rice-production-in-india-soars-past-chinas-despite-groundwater-drift\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rice production in India soars past China\u2019s despite groundwater drift - Selina Wamucii | Food &amp; Agriculture News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"India is newly the rice production champ of the world in the 2024-25 fiscal year, overtaking China amid escalating groundwater crisis. 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