44 Rice Today October-December 2011 45Rice Today October-December 2011

Maps

On 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 world2 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 consumption rates over 100 kilograms 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.

Although per capita consumption has always been high in Asia, it has more than doubled in the rest of the world over the last 50 years.3 As we approach a world population of 7 billion, these geographic trends in rice consumption reveal new challenges and opportunities for rice production around the world.

by Andrew Nelson

1 Food supply quantity data, FAOSTAT, http://snipurl.com/fao_stat.

2 See www.worldmapper.org for more examples of cartograms in which territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.

3 FAOSTAT (2010).

Who eats the most rice?

Top 20 per capita rice-consuming countries.

Brunei Darussalam 245 Sri Lanka 97

Vietnam 166 Guinea 95

Laos 163 Sierra Leone 92

Bangladesh 160 Guinea-Bissau 85

Myanmar 157 Guyana 81

Cambodia 152 Nepal 78

Philippines 129 Korea, DPR 77

Indonesia 125 China 77

Thailand 103 Malaysia 77

Madagascar 102 Korea, Republic of 76

Source: FAOSTAT - http://faostat.fao.org/site/609/DesktopDefault.aspx?PageID=609#ancor

China (28.7%)

India (23.6%)Indonesia (8.2%)

Bangladesh (6.5%)

Vietnam (4.0%)

Rest of Asia (15.7%)

Africa (7.3%)

Americas (4.9%)Rest of the world (1.1%)

< 12 12–36 36–72

Kg/capita/yr

72–120 >120Fig. 1. Territory size represents the proportion of milled rice worldwide that is consumed in that territory. Color shows the per capita consumption of milled rice. Inset map shows a more traditional representation.

Fig. 2. Proportion (%) of the world's milled rice consumed in each region.