Thai 5 per cent broken white rice, the regional benchmark, averaged $484 a tonne free on board – loaded on ship at the export port – in September, up from $356 in October 2025, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's GIEWS monitoring service, accessed via Cropli.

Vietnamese 5 per cent broken rose to $441 in August from $353 in March before easing to $419 in September.

Indian prices have lagged. India's 25 per cent broken grade averaged $367 a tonne in September, 2.6 per cent above a year earlier, after falling to $326 in May, its lowest in four years.

Thai and Indian rice traded within $16 a tonne of each other a year ago; the gap widened to $164 in June and was still $117 in September.

Indian prices are now rising. Indian 5 per cent broken parboiled rice, partly boiled in the husk, was quoted at $378 to $384 a tonne in the week to 1 October, its highest since July 2025, Reuters reported.

"Crop conditions are worsening rather than improving. That is pushing up paddy prices and prompting exporters to raise rice prices," a Mumbai-based trader told the news agency.

PHILIPPINES, MALAYSIA BUILD RESERVES

Thai prices turned in May, climbing from $404 a tonne in April to $494 in June, after a first quarter in which "rice export prices across major Asian suppliers continued to decline, with Thailand recording the sharpest drop", the US Department of Agriculture's Beijing post said in July, citing record Indian production and exports.

The USDA's office in Bangkok later described a "May-June El Niño stockpiling wave", whose forward sales, deals agreed for later delivery, Thai exporters were still filling in July.

Thai rice exports to the Philippines more than doubled in the first half of the year to 295,939 tonnes, according to Thailand's Department of Foreign Trade.

When prices rose again from mid-August, "exporters secured rice to fill Philippine and Malaysian orders", the Bangkok office said in its 1 October report.

"The Thai Rice Exporters Association (TREA) reported that both countries had stepped up purchases to build reserves against El Niño." Many exporters had signed forward contracts near $400 a tonne and then had to buy rice at higher domestic prices, the association said.

The Philippines, the largest buyer of Vietnamese rice, has ruled out repeating last year's four-month import suspension. "Unlike last year, we will not suspend imports because we have to prepare for the impact of a strong El Niño expected around November and December," Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. said on 4 August.

Philippine imports reached 3.89mn tonnes by 17 September, up 19 per cent from a year earlier, on Bureau of Plant Industry data reported by the Manila Times. The USDA's Manila post forecasts imports of 5.2mn tonnes for 2026/27, up 21.7 per cent.

The buying is narrower than the "stockpiling" label suggests. Manila halted imports of 5 per cent broken rice from 1 July to support farmgate prices – what growers are paid – and Philippine commercial stocks rose in July but fell back in August, the USDA said.

Malaysia raised its national rice stockpile to cover up to nine months in March, citing the conflict in West Asia rather than El Niño. Indonesia's state buyer Bulog held 4.5mn tonnes on 1 October, its operations director Andi Afdal said, and was not allowed to import in 2025/26, the USDA's Jakarta post said.

INDIA'S FIRST CROP FALL IN A DECADE

India's crop entered the picture later. The second factor behind the Thai rise from mid-August, the Bangkok office said, was a warning from the Rice Exporters Association of India that a weak monsoon could cut output and make Indian exports less competitive.

The June-September monsoon delivered 87 per cent of its long-period average, the weakest since 2015, the India Meteorological Department said on 30 September.

The USDA in September cut its forecast for India's 2026/27 crop by 3mn tonnes to 147mn tonnes, against a record 154mn tonnes last season, "resulting in its first year-to-year reduction for rice production since 2015/16".

Exporters expect a deeper fall. "Yields will be lower due to reduced rainfall. We estimate that production could decline by around 10 million metric tons," B.V. Krishna Rao, president of the Rice Exporters Association, told Reuters in September.

The government disputes both. "I do not believe that production will be significantly impacted by this level of deficit," Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said on 29 September, adding that production estimates would be released shortly.

Indian domestic prices "were steady from the beginning of the marketing year on record harvest, but speculations on the impact of El Nino conditions in major rice growing Asian countries fueled prices in recent months," the USDA's New Delhi post said in late August.

Record stocks limit how far Indian prices can climb. Rice in the central pool, the government-procured grain stock, stood at 39.05mn tonnes on 1 September, nearly three times the buffer norm, Mint reported.

The USDA's New Delhi post forecasts record exports of 25mn tonnes in 2026/27 and said in June the government was unlikely to impose export restrictions because stocks were "more than sufficient". "India's large export volumes have continued to exert downward pressure on regional prices," the Beijing post said on 1 October.

FIRM, NOT SHORT

FAO's All Rice Price Index rose 1.4 per cent in September. Thai 5 per cent white reached $470 a tonne on 8 September in exporters' quotes, the Bangkok office said, and Reuters quoted it at $460 on 1 October.

A Bangkok trader told the agency the previous week that easing concern over El Niño was prompting millers to release stocks. Thailand's 2026/27 ending stocks, the grain left at season's end, are forecast at a five-year high of 4.4mn tonnes. The Thai benchmark remains about 27 per cent below its January 2024 peak.

"Though domestic supplies are low, external demand remains weak," a Ho Chi Minh City trader told Reuters.

The global cushion is thinning. The USDA forecasts world rice ending stocks at 197mn tonnes in 2026/27, down from 202.7mn tonnes, with India holding 28 per cent of them.

Citing the USDA's August forecasts, Anil Kumar Mittal, chairman of Indian basmati miller KRBL, told analysts on 17 August: "This is a meaningfully tighter world balance sheet than the market was pricing at the start of the calendar year, and it should keep the rice market firm rather than soft."

Japan, which imports only its minimum-access quota, is moving the other way. The average supermarket price of a 5kg bag fell to ¥2,971 (about $19) in the week to 13 September from ¥4,416 in January, the agriculture ministry said.

The weather risk for Asian exporters has not passed. Thailand's Royal Irrigation Department expects El Niño to reach very strong intensity from November 2026 to January 2027 and has told dam operators to store as much water as possible, the Bangkok office said, adding that water for the off-season crop is now the main concern.

The US Climate Prediction Center, which puts the chance of a very strong event this winter at more than 90 per cent, issues its next update on 8 October.