India + China consumes > 53% of rice in the world

1. Maps
Who eats the most rice?
by Andrew Nelson
O
n average, each person in the
world consumes more than
50 kilograms of rice a year.1
But, this average hides the
massive variability in consumption
patterns around the world. The map
(Fig. 1) shows an unusual view of the
world 2 in which each territory has been
distorted based on the proportion of
the world’s rice that is consumed there.
The coloring in the map represents the
consumption per capita, so the map
shows two key pieces of information
that dictate rice consumption patterns.
Asia has a large share of the
world’s population and has high rates
of consumption. China and India
alone account for more than 50% of
the world’s rice consumption (Fig. 2).
But, they are by no means the highest
consumers per capita (see Table).
Higher rates are found in much of
South and Southeast Asia, West Africa,
Madagascar, and Guyana. Several
of these countries have per capita Kg/capita/yr
consumption rates over 100 kilograms Fig. 1. Territory size represents the proportion of milled rice worldwide that is consumed in that territory.
< 12 12–36 36–72 72–120 >120
Color shows the per capita consumption of milled rice. Inset map shows a more traditional representation.
per year, and Brunei tops the table at
more than 20 kilograms per capita per
month, compared with rates in Europe
of less than 0.5 kilogram per month. Rest of the world (1.1%)
Although per capita consumption Top 20 per capita rice-consuming countries. Fig. 2. Proportion (%) of the Americas (4.9%)
world's milled rice consumed
has always been high in Asia, it has in each region. Africa (7.3%)
more than doubled in the rest of the Brunei Darussalam 245 Sri Lanka 97
world over the last 50 years.3 As we China (28.7%)
Vietnam 166 Guinea 95
approach a world population of 7
billion, these geographic trends in rice Laos 163 Sierra Leone 92
consumption reveal new challenges and
Bangladesh 160 Guinea-Bissau 85
opportunities for rice production around Rest of Asia (15.7%)
the world. Myanmar 157 Guyana 81
Cambodia 152 Nepal 78
Philippines 129 Korea, DPR 77
Indonesia 125 China 77 Vietnam (4.0%)
Thailand 103 Malaysia 77
1
Food supply quantity data, FAOSTAT, http://snipurl.
com/fao_stat. Madagascar 102 Korea, Republic of 76 Bangladesh (6.5%)
2
See www.worldmapper.org for more examples of
cartograms in which territories are re-sized on each map Source: FAOSTAT - http://faostat.fao.org/site/609/DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=609#ancor India (23.6%)
according to the subject of interest. Indonesia (8.2%)
3
FAOSTAT (2010).
44 Rice Today October-December 2011 Rice Today October-December 2011 45