Rice Poised for Third Record Crop as Food Prices Retreat

The third consecutive year of record rice production is poised to expand inventories to the most in more than a decade, driving down prices and helping to contain the more than $1 trillion spent on food imports annually.

Farmers will harvest 466.4 million metric tons in the 2012-2013 season, boosting stockpiles by 0.7 percent to 104.9 million tons, the largest since 2001-2002, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Prices of 5 percent white rice in Thailand may drop as much as 14 percent to $520 a ton by the end of July, said Mamadou Ciss, who is the president of Alliance Commodities SA in Geneva and has traded the grain for more than a quarter century.