SINGAPORE ¨C Nearly a decade after a spike in global food prices sent shock waves around the world, Asia¡¯s top rice producers are suffering from a blistering drought that threatens to cut output and boost prices of a staple for half the world¡¯s population.
World rice production is expected to decline for the first time this year since 2010, as failing rains linked to an El Nino weather pattern cut crop yields in Asia¡¯s rice bowl.
A heat wave is sweeping top rice exporter India, while the No. 2 supplier Thailand is facing a second year of drought. Swathes of farmland in Vietnam, the third-biggest supplier, are also parched as irrigation fed by the Mekong River runs dry.
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