Why is the price of rice rising across the country? | Explained

admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:23:00 +0000

The drop in area under rice cultivation is linked to the forecast of a ‘below normal monsoon’ by the India Meteorological Department in May this year that factored in the likely impact of ‘El Niño’. Representational image
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

The story so far: The price of rice, the staple of most Indian meals, especially in South India, has gone up suddenly. A 26-kilogram bag of fine rice that used to retail at ₹1,800 per bag, or about ₹70 per kilogram, is now retailing for ₹2,150 per bag, or about ₹82 per kg.

What has changed during this agriculture season in India?

Nationally, the area under rice cultivation for Kharif (monsoon crop) has dropped from 449.18 lakh hectares in 2025-26 to 433.62 lakh hectares. A drop of 3.46% in area sown, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare. The drop in area under rice cultivation is linked to the forecast of a ‘below normal monsoon’ by the India Meteorological Department in May this year that factored in the likely impact of ‘El Niño’. The periodic climate pattern of warming of the Pacific Ocean that affects trade winds and the Indian monsoon. The central government issued an advisory to States asking farmers to shift to short-duration crops or less-water-intensive crops like pulses and millets. In June, Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, after a meeting with State government officials, research bodies, IMD and others, said: “Changing crop strategy in rain-fed areas has become the need of the hour”.

Poor rains this monsoon bleed farmers, power utilities

How did the monsoon impact rice crop?

Rice is a water-intensive crop that needs seasonal rain and more water at certain stages of the plant life. The monsoon of 2026 has been patchy, with extended dry spells and less rain. The south-west monsoon ended in India at 12.6% to 13% below the long-period average. According to the IMD: “Out of the 36 meteorological subdivisions, eighteen subdivisions, constituting 53% of the area, received normal rainfall, while 17 subdivisions, representing 42%, recorded deficient rainfall.”

Why is the price rising now?

“The Minimum Support Price is ₹2,440. However, in the open market, the price of a quintal of paddy now is ₹4,000. Just 10 days ago, it was ₹3,400. I have never seen this high price for paddy in my 52-year career,” says a rice miller in Miryalguda, which is a hub for rice mills. Globally, rice prices have gone up by 5.59% over the past month and up by 52.4% compared to the same time last year.

In India, Kharif rice cultivation begins in the first week of June, with the crop ready for harvest in the middle of October and November. Rice millers and traders get regular reports on the status of the crop and accordingly bid for the crop before the harvest. The price is dictated by word-of-mouth buzz in the wholesale market.

Are all rice varieties impacted by the price rise?

No. The demand for fine rice is higher, and its price has gone up substantially. The easy-to-grow and harvest varieties, which include coarse rice, are cultivated in large parts of the country. So far, the price of this rice has remained around ₹40-45 per kg. The arrival of this rice in the market has not been impacted so far. The demand for fine rice is higher in southern India, where the states are supplying it to ration card holders.

What is likely to happen now?

“The price of rice has reached its peak. The arrivals in the wholesale market are yet to begin in a big way. If the arrivals are normal, the price will remain the same. The price is unlikely to go further up or go down substantially due to the weather forecast and warnings by agriculture officers,” says Venkataramana Chowdhury, general secretary of Miryalguda Rice Millers Association.

Published – October 07, 2026 04:53 pm IST

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U.K. forecasts ‘biggest’ El Nino will smash records, spark hottest year

admin — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 06:43:00 +0000

This year’s El Nino weather pattern will be the biggest in over a century and could make 2027 the hottest year globally, Britain’s national weather agency said on Friday (August 21, 2026).

An El Nino weather event happens when warming sea surface temperatures in the tropical eastern Pacific trigger worldwide changes in winds, atmospheric pressure and rainfall, as well as higher global temperatures overall.

Adam Scaife, head of long-range forecasting at the weather agency, told the BBC: “We are expecting the biggest El Nino for over a century, peaking at something over three degrees – that is unheard of in modern climate records.”

This means Pacific water would heat up more than 3 degrees Celsius above the norm in the coming months.

El Nino occurs when water temperatures rise at least 0.5 degrees Celsius, above the baseline. While it is part of a natural cycle, scientists agree climate change increases its impacts.

A record El Nino would be “adding to the stresses of climate change” following a summer of heatwaves across Europe, the Met Office said in a blog.

Temperatures in the Pacific region are currently running about 2.6 degrees Celsius, above a rolling 30-year average, according to the Climate Brink dashboard based on data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The dashboard also aggregates forecasts that put El Nino on course to peak at a 3.9 degrees Celsius, anomaly this November – well above a 3 degrees Celsius anomaly detected in 2015.

“We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event,” British scientist Scaife said in a Met Office blog.

If the forecast is accurate, then 2026 “will far exceed our recent experience of El Nino and its worldwide climate influences”, said the physicist who specialises in climate modelling.

“I have never seen an El Nino signal this intense in our forecasts,” he added, with even a 2C rise considered a “really big event”.

El Nino typically results in drier conditions across southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, and northern Brazil, and wetter conditions in the Horn of Africa, the southern United States, Peru and Ecuador.

This year’s anomalous warmth will have particularly strong effects throughout the Tropics, Scaife said.

Forecasters “expect really severe droughts in places like South America, and the West Pacific”, he added.

El Nino is already causing well below normal rainfall in India, the Met Office said.

The weather event is also expected to prompt “increased rainfall and storminess in the autumn here in the U.K. around November time”, Scaife said.

“These are not short-term weather forecasts. We’re talking about really long-term, persistent conditions here,” he stressed.

2027 likely ‘hottest ever’

Since El Nino events drive up the global average temperature, 2027 is now “very likely to replace 2024 as the warmest year on record”, said Nick Dunstone, another Met Office scientist.

In 2024, global temperatures exceeded 1.5C above the preindustrial period, the limit set by international commitments to curb global warming.

Last year was the third hottest on record.

The British forecast for a very strong El Nino was in line with other forecasts: Carlo Buontempo, director of the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, told AFP in January that 2026 could be “another record-breaking year”.

Peruvian and Ecuadoran fishermen coined the term El Nino (“the boy” or “the Christ Child”) in the 19th century for the arrival of an unusually warm ocean current off the coast that reduced their catch just before Christmas.

This phase of natural climate oscillation between high and low temperatures occurs every two to seven years, according to meteorologists.

There is an opposite cooling pattern called La Nina, and these have alternated in an irregular cycle that has lasted for thousands of years.

Published – August 22, 2026 12:11 pm IST