ASEAN and the Global Rice Situation and Outlook

Abstract

Member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) play a major role in the global rice market. In this paper, lead author Eric Wailes, agricultural economics and agribusiness professor at the University of Arkansas, presents the current and projected status of the rice economies in ASEAN countries until 2022. The baseline situation of the rice market is generated using the Arkansas Global Rice Model, a multicountry statistical simulation. The global rice outlook is also discussed with particular attention to other Asian nations with which ASEAN as a regional association has developed official relationships—the People’s Republic of China, Japan, the Republic of Korea, as well as India and Pakistan. The outlook estimates are not predictions but provide a framework to analyze the direction of supply and demand and the management of risks of rice price volatility and their causes. Through the rice model, the paper presents a useful tool to assess intermediate and longer term challenges for the ASEAN region and to determine alternative pathways for designing policy actions for sustainable rice trade.