Rice, India (export policies)
The world's leading exporter, India banned the export of non-basmati white rice in July 2023, cutting its sales by a third and spreading price rises as far as West Africa. The 2024 lifting reopened the tap, but the precedent shows that a single Indian domestic policy decision is enough to destabilise the staple food of half of humanity.
A very thin world market
Rice feeds nearly half of humanity, yet it is one of the least traded grains: barely 10 % of production crosses a border, against more than 20 % for wheat. The big producer countries, China, India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, consume at home first and manage rice as a matter of social peace.
This thinness of the market makes the Indian lever brutal. When the top exporter, which alone accounts for 40 % of flows, suddenly withdraws its supply, there is no cushion: Thailand and Vietnam can absorb only a fraction of the gap. The July 2023 embargo thus propelled the FAO rice price index to its highest level since 2008. A staple vital to three and a half billion people trades on a residual market, and is therefore hypersensitive to the slightest political decision by a single country.
The shockwave hits West Africa
The shockwave hit hardest in West Africa. Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Benin and Nigeria are among the world's leading importers of Indian rice, often cheap broken grades that form the food base of modest urban households. Benin serves as a hub, re-exporting to neighboring Nigeria.
For these countries, the 2023 Indian ban translated within weeks into a surge in the price of a sack and a scramble to substitute with pricier Asian suppliers. The food security of an entire region found itself indexed to an arbitration of Indian domestic policy, containing inflation ahead of elections, without any West African government having a say. The September 2024 lifting reopened the tap, but the lever stays in New Delhi's hand.