Newly planted rice saplings have been underwater since July after torrential rain battered northern India, with landslides and flash floods sweeping through the region.
Last month, India, which is the world’s largest exporter of rice, announced a ban on exporting non-basmati white rice in a bid to calm rising prices at home and ensure food security. India then followed with more restrictions on its rice exports, including a 20% duty on exports of parboiled rice.
The move has triggered fears of global food inflation, hurt the livelihoods of some farmers and prompted several rice-dependent countries to seek urgent exemptions from the ban.
So a rough estimate of 1600 kcals per pound of rice, 10 billion pounds, assuming daily intake of 2000 kcals, that’s roughly the yearly calories of about 22 million people (assuming I didn’t fuck up somewhere). To put it in perspective.
i didnt go that far into the math, but one of the websites I was looking at said that the average Chinese consumes ~220lbs of rice a year, and that’s like 45.4 million average people. presumably China will tap into their national rice reserve…