ASEAN nations can help avoid world rice price shocks by reducing export restrictions, placing less emphasis on self-sufficiency, retooling Thailand’s rice pledging program, and expanding coordinated rice policies with India and Pakistan, according to a series of working papers from the Asian Development Bank (ADB). “So far, the rice market appears to be holding steady and current production estimates suggest that overall prices will remain stable, which is good news in a time of worry over the global corn, wheat, and soybean markets,” said ADB for Agriculture, Food Security and Rural Development in the Regional Sustainable Development Department’s Practice Leader Lourdes Adriano. “To enhance resiliency and ensure that rice prices do not jump beyond the reach of the region’s poor, policy makers must think and act regionally,” Adriano said. The 2007-2008 rice price spike was triggered in part by export restrictions, and panic buying by importers. The working papers, produced out of the recent ASEAN Rice Trade Forum organized by the ASEAN Food Security Reserve Board, the ASEAN Secretariat, and ADB, show regional trade restrictions pushed global rice prices up 149%. Instead, the papers recommend that rice importing countries lower their self-sufficiency targets in exchange for commitments from exporting countries to stay away from unilateral export restrictions.
