Cambodia posts sharpest increase in rice output among major producers

PHNOM PENH, 20 June 2013 (Cambodia Herald) -- Cambodia posted the sharpest increase in production among the world's major rice producers between 2000 and 2010, the Food and Agricultural Organization said in a report released Wednesday.

The 2013 edition of the UN agency's Statistical Yearbook showed that Cambodia was the world's 12th largest rice producer in 2010 with output of 8.25 million tonnes. That represented an average annual growth rate of 7.4 percent since 2000. The only rice producers with sharper increases were in Africa and outside the world's top 20 producers.

LOW YIELDS

Despite the boom in Cambodia's rice production, the FAO report showed that yields averaged only 3.0 tonnes a hectare, below the world average of 4.3 tonnes a hectare and a regional average of 4.1 tonnes a hectare in Southeast Asia.

The report showed that average yields in Thailand, the world's sixth-biggest rice producer in 2010, were even lower than Cambodia at 2.9 hectares a tonne.

The highest yields in the region were 5.3 tonnes a hectare in Vietnam, the world's fifth-largest producer, and 5.0 tonnes in Indonesia, which was ranked third in 2010. Among other ASEAN countries, average yields were 4.1 tonnes in Myanmar, the seventh-largest producer, and 3.6 tonnes in the Philippines (eighth largest), Laos (20th) and Malaysia (24th).

Yields in China, the world's biggest rice producer, were 6.5 tonnes a hectare. The highest rice yields were in Australia and New Zealand (10.4 tonnes) followed by Egypt (9.4 tonnes), Turkey (8.7 tonnes) and Spain (7.6 tonnes), the report said.

- See more at: http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=OTRlZjk2Yzg3OTd#sthash.TTwLgqVg.dpuf