1) Title | |
Title | FAO Rice Price Update |
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2) Data source information | |
Compiling Organization | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) |
Data source | |
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3) Contacts | |
Contact organization | Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) |
Contact organization unit | Markets and Trade Division (EST) |
Contact mail address | Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy |
Contact email address | |
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4) Metadata update | |
Metadata last posted | 06/08/2025 |
Metadata last update | 25/07/2025 |
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5) Statistical presentation | |
Data description | The FAO Rice Price Update provides updates of the FAO All Rice Price Index (FARPI), the FARPI's four sub-indices, rice export prices from major origins, and a summary note describing monthly price developments. The FARPI measures changes in international rice prices. It consists of four components that track price movements of the major rice varieties traded internationally, namely: Indica, Aromatic, Japonica and Glutinous rice. |
Coverage | Data disseminated encompasses the FAO All Rice Price Index, its four-sub-indices and rice export quotations from ten origins, which are considered by FAO rice market specialists representative of international rice prices. |
Sector coverage | Agriculture, forestry, fisheries; International trade; and Prices. |
Statistical concepts and definitions | The FAO All Rice Price Index (FARPI) is a Laspeyres index that measures changes in international prices of rice. A total of 21 rice export quotations are employed to calculate the FARPI. These quotations are combined into four groups representing the major varieties traded internationally, namely: Indica, Aromatic, Japonica and Glutinous rice. Within each varietal group, a simple average of the relative prices of appropriate quotations is calculated; then the average relative prices of each of the four varietal groups are combined by weighting them with their (fixed) trade shares in 2014-2016. "Quality" is defined by the percentage of broken kernels, with higher (lower) quality referring to rice with less (equal to or more) than 15 percent brokens. The Sub-index for Aromatic rice follows movements in prices of Basmati and fragrant rice. The FAO All Rice Price Index and its sub-indices are provided on a monthly and calendar year basis, in nominal terms, from January 1990, onwards. |
Reference area | World, international reference markets of rice, including Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, Thailand, Uruguay, United States of America, and Viet Nam, according to the United Nations M-49 list and the related FAO Statistical Standard on Country and Area Codes for Statistical Use. |
Time coverage | January 1990, onwards. |
Base period | 2014-2016 (2014-2016=100) |
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6) Unit of measure | |
Unit of measure | United States dollars per tonne for prices, index points for indices. |
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7) Reference period | |
Reference period | Calendar month and year. |
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8) Institutional mandate | |
Legal acts and other agreements | Article I of FAO constitution states "The Organization shall collect, analyse, interpret and disseminate information relating to nutrition, food and agriculture (the term “agriculture” and its derivatives includes forestry, fisheries and aquaculture)" (FAO, 2017). |
Data acquisition and data transmission | Not applicable. |
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9) Confidentiality | |
Confidentiality - policy | FAO Data and statistics are produced in accordance with FAO Policy on Data Protection and the implementation modalities of FAO Statistics and Data Quality Assurance Framework (SDQAF) Principle 4 on Data protection and Statistical Confidentiality. |
Confidentiality - data treatment | Not applicable. |
Privacy | Not applicable. |
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10) Release Policy | |
Release calendar | The FAO All Rice Price Index (FARPI), its four sub-indices and rice export prices from major origins are published through the FAO Rice Price Update. The FAO Rice Price Update is released on a monthly basis, following a calendar that is published at the start of each year. The monthly release dates for 2025 are: 3 January, 7 February, 7 March, 4 April, 2 May, 6 June, 4 July, 8 August, 5 September, 3 October, 7 November, and 5 December. |
Release calendar access | |
User access | The FAO Rice Price Update is disseminated according to FAO's Open Data Licensing for Statistical Databases Policy, under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC-BY 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and are subject to FAO Statistical Database Terms of Use (https://www.fao.org/contact-us/terms/db-terms-of-use/en/). By using this database, you agree to be bound by the terms of this license and the FAO Statistical Database Terms of Use (https://www.fao.org/contact-us/terms/db-terms-of-use/en/). |
Open data license | |
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11) Frequency of dissemination | |
Frequency of dissemination | Monthly. |
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12) Accessibility and clarity | |
News release | None. |
Publications | FAO. 1995-2025. Food Outlook – Biannual report on global food markets. Food Outlook, all eds. Rome. https://www.fao.org/giews/reports/food-outlook/ |
Online database | Not applicable. |
Micro-data access | Not applicable. |
Other formats | Not applicable. |
Documentation on methodology | A general description of the composition of the FAO All Rice Price Index (FARPI) and its sub-indices is made available to the public in the FAO Rice Price Update website, as well as in notes that accompany tables and dashboards. In addition, a note published in the July 2020 issue of the FAO Rice Price Update presents the revision of the base period of the FARPI and the expansion of its price coverage. Specific queries are addressed by e-mail through the following mailbox: [email protected] |
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13) Relevance | |
User needs | The FAO All Rice Price Index and its sub-indices offer a tool to monitor international rice price developments over time. As such, they can prove of interest to a vast typology of users, who use them to inform or assist in the formulation of policies and strategies and as inputs to research and analyses. Some main user categories include global rice and/or food market analysts, governments, research institutions and academia, FAO internal users, media and general public. |
User satisfaction | User opinions are not systematically collected and no quantitative assessment of their satisfaction with data provided is available. However, regular contact with users is maintained through a dedicated mailbox ([email protected]), to which they are encouraged to submit their queries and requests. This mailbox serves as the main channel to process inquiries and gather user feedback. |
Completeness | Concerted efforts are made to compute price indices solely on the basis of observed and complete data. Inevitable lag times in data reporting from originating institutions may nonetheless occur. When this is the case and a specific quotation is unavailable for a given day or week, indices are computed using an incomplete monthly price average. This implies that some datapoints for the most recent month may be subject to revision. |
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14) Accuracy and reliability | |
Overall accuracy | The FAO All Rice Price Index and its sub-indices are calculated based on standard methodologies and are regularly checked for potential inconsistencies and errors. Underlying export quotations may however be subject to sampling errors that are not easy to quantify. To counteract any potential bias that may result from overreliance on a single series, numerous export quotations are considered for a given rice quality, origin and price index. Moreover, methods used are regularly reviewed by FAO rice market specialists, who also check data for plausibility and representativeness. |
Model assumption error | Not applicable. |
Imputation indicators | Not applicable. |
Data revision - policy | FAO undertakes periodical methodological reviews of indices’ underlying price series and weights in order to assess whether they are still representative of the global rice trade structure. When revisions to weights or underlying components are deemed necessary, index series are recomputed back in time. Notes that assess the impact of methodological modifications are released to the public in conjunction with revised indices. The latest of such revisions was released in the July 2020 issue of the FAO Rice Price Update. Its accompanying note is available here. For previous versions of the FAO Rice Price Index, its structure, and underlying methods please see:
FAO. 1961. An FAO Index of Export Prices of Rice. Monthly Bulletin of Agricultural Economics and Statistics, Vol. 10, No.11. Rome, FAO. FAO. 1970. Review of the FAO Index of Export Prices of Rice – A summary report. Study Group on Rice to the Committee on Commodity Problems (14th Session). Rome. FAO. 1988. FAO’s Revised Export Price Index for Rice. Intergovernmental Group on Rice (31st Session). Rome. Other than major methodological revisions, source institutions may occasionally revise the export prices they report. When this is the case, FAO adopts the amended data and revises price series and indices accordingly. Exceptional time lags in data reporting by source institutions may also require that FAO computes indices based on partial monthly data. This implies that datapoints for the most recent month could be subject to revision. |
Data revision - practice | When a data revision is warranted, all amended data are published in the issue of the FAO All Rice Price Update immediately succeeding the revision. |
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15) Timeliness and punctuality | |
Timeliness | The FAO All Rice Price Index, its sub-indices and rice export prices are updated and published based on a pre-established monthly release schedule. The time lag between the reference period and dissemination of the export price and index data is kept to a minimum. Price indices and export quotations are for the most part updated and released a week after the closure of the reference period. |
Punctuality | All monthly releases of the FAO Rice Price Update have been completed according to schedule. However, the released calendar of the FAO Rice Price Update was subject to a revision in April 2022 in order to align it to changes in release dates of the FAO Food Price Index. |
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16) Coherence and Comparability | |
Comparability – geographical | Export quotations may be comparable across geographical origins, provided that the rice quality and basis of the quotations being compared coincide. |
Comparability - over time | The FAO All Rice Price Index, its sub-indices and rice export prices are comparable over time. |
Coherence | Not applicable for cross-domain coherence. The FAO All Rice Price Index, its sub-indices and rice export prices are internally coherent. |
Classification system | Export prices may be quoted for rice in varying stages of processing. Rice and its level of processing are mapped to the 2022 revision of the Harmonized System (HS 2022). All major rice export origins are mapped to the UN M49. |
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17) Statistical process | |
Source data | The weights employed by the FAO All Rice Price Index are devised based on periodic assessments of the composition of volumes traded internationally. The latest of such assessments took place in 2020 and reviewed rice shipments by the top 15 global rice exporters based on official trade data. However, given the diverse definitions and scope of national trade nomenclatures (or where customs data does not fully capture overall rice flows), estimates were also drawn by FAO from knowledge of consumer preferences in destination markets and/or the make-up of production at points of origin. Other data is sourced from various institutions, for instance international organizations, international rice brokers, and industry associations, including:Cambodia Rice Federation. 2025. FOB Indicative Price. Phnom Penh, Cambodia Rice Federation. Creed Rice Co., Inc. 2025. Creed Rice Market Report. Houston, Texas, Creed Rice Co., Inc. Terms of service: https://riceonline.com/terms. Informa UK Ltd. 2011. The Public Ledger. London, Informa UK Ltd. International Grains Council. 2025. Grain Market Indicators. London, International Grains Council. Jackson Son & Co. (London) Ltd. 2011. Market Report. Surrey, Jackson Son & Co. (London) Ltd. Live Rice Index. 2019. LRI Prices. Farnham, Live Rice Index. http://livericeindex.com/. London Rice Brokers' Association. 2014. Circular. Surrey, London Rice Brokers' Association. Myanmar Rice Federation. 2025. Export prices by rice type. Yangon, Myanmar Rice Federation. Osiriz/InfoArroz. 2025. World Rice Market Report. Osiriz/InfoArroz. Thai Department of Foreign Trade. 2025. ราคาข้าวสารส่งออก F.O.B.กรุงเทพฯ . Thai Rice Exporters Association. 2025. : สมาคมผู้ส่งออกข้าวไทย :: Thai Rice Exporters Association :: Thailand :. United States Department of Agriculture, AMS Livestock, Poultry & Grain Market News. 2025. National Weekly Rice Summary. Little Rock, AR, United States Department of Agriculture. Policies and Links: https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/policies-and-links.United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service. 2025. Rice Outlook. United States Department of Agriculture. Policies and Links: https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/policies-and-links.Viettraders. 2025. Market monitoring. Hanoi, AgroMonitor & Viettraders. Terms: https://viettraders.com/terms. |
Frequency of data collection and acquisition | The frequency of data collection may vary depending on the release calendar of source institutions. But, for the most part, FAO compiles data on a daily or weekly basis. |
Data collection method | Data is compiled by FAO rice market specialists through various print/online publications, databases, websites and/or other industry communication channels. |
Data validation | In compiling the export price data and computing indices, FAO rice market specialists validate data through outlier detection, coherence and plausibility checks and by reviewing potential transmission and processing errors. |
Data compilation | FAO compiles monthly price averages from daily or weekly price data. Monthly series are converted into index form using trade-based weights. |
Regional aggregation | Not applicable. |
Adjustment | No seasonal adjustments are made, nor are series decomposed. |
Imputation | Not applicable. |
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18) Quality management | |
Quality assurance | FAO is responsible for the quality of the internal statistical processes used to compile the published datasets. The FAO Statistics and Data Quality Assurance Framework (SDQAF), available at: http://www.fao.org/3/cc6683en/cc6683en.pdf', provides the necessary principles, guidelines and tools to carry out quality assessments. FAO is performing an internal bi-annual survey (FAO Quality Assessment and Planning Survey) designed to gather information on all of FAO’s statistical activities, notably to assess the extent to which quality standards are being implemented with a view to increasing compliance with the quality dimensions of SDQAF, documenting best practices and preparing quality improvement plans, where necessary. Domain-specific quality assurance activities are carried out systematically (e.g. quality reviews, self-assessments, compliance monitoring). |
Quality assessment | No specific quality assessment has been undertaken for the FAO Rice Price Update. However, the FAO All Rice Price Index and its sub-indices form part of the FAO Food Price Index and FAO Commodity Price Indices. The 2023 FAO Quality Assessment and Planning Survey (QAPS) assigned the FAO Food Price Index and FAO Commodity Price Indices a score of 0.79. Under the QAPS, to be considered of good quality, an activity should achieve an average score equal to or greater than 0.6. |
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19) Recommended uses and limitations | |
Recommended uses and limitations | |
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20) Comment | |
Comment | The FAO Rice Price Update is issued free of charge. To subscribe to the FAO Rice Price Update please send an e-mail to [email protected] with "subscribe" in the subject line. Please note that, by subscribing, you will be accepting the terms and conditions described in the FAO Data Protection and Privacy Notice. |
