World rice production compared to other cereals

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The world annual cereal production for 1989 is shown in Table 1 . About 95 percent of the world's rice is produced in developing countries and 92 percent of it in Asia. In contrast only about 42 percent of the wheat produced is grown in developing countries. Production of rice, exports and imports and estimated irrigated areas of major rice producing countries are shown in Table 2. In 1988, China was the principal rice producer (35 percent) followed by India (22 percent), Indonesia (8.5 percent), Bangladesh (4.7 percent), Thailand (4.3 percent) and Viet Nam (3.4 percent). Of the major rice producers only Pakistan, the United States and Egypt had 100 percent irrigated rice land (IRRI, 1991 a). Non-irrigated rice cultivation predominates in many countries, such as Thailand and Brazil.

Among the cereals, rice production uses the highest proportion of land area. Of the 147.5 million ha of land devoted to rice production worldwide in 1989, developing countries contributed 141.4 million ha, or 96 percent. Asia accounted for 90 percent of the world's land area cultivated to rice; in this region, 132.1 million ha are used for this crop (FAO, 1990a).

Mean yields of cereal crops in various regions of the world in 1989 were lower in developing countries than in developed countries (FAO, 1990a), (Table 3). Rough rice yields were highest in Oceania, mainly Australia, followed by Europe and North and Central America, and were lowest in Africa and South America.

When the yields of the various cereals were adjusted using conversion factors based on extraction rates, rice was shown to have the highest food yield among the cereals (Table 4). Food energy yields were approximately proportional to food yields, since energy contents of the cereals are similar. Food protein yield, however, was higher in white wheat flour than in milled rice because the protein content of wheat flour is higher than that of milled rice.

TABLE 1 - Annual production of cereal crops, total tubers and roots and pulses by region, 1989 (million tonnes)

Sources: FAO, 1990a, 1990b.

TABLE 2 - Rough rice production and rice imports and exports, 1988, and estimated irrigated rice area, 1987

^a Milled rice basis. Conversion factor from rough rice to milled rice is 0.7.

Sources: FAO, 1990a: IRRI, 1991a.

TABLE 3 - Mean yield of cereal crops by region, 1989 (t/ha)

Source: FAO, 1990a.

TABLE 4 - Comparison of grain yield, food energy yield and protein yield of cereals based on energy and protein contents and conversion factor (extraction rate)

^a N factor was 6.25, except 5.7 for wheat and rye and 5.95 for rice.

Sources: FAO, 1990a; Lu & Chang, 1980; Eggum, 1969, 1977, 1979.

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