SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – South Korea’s rice production in the upcoming marketing year is forecast to decline slightly due to government efforts to avoid overproduction, according to a Global Agricultural Information Network report from the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS).

The rice crop for the 2022-23 marketing year, which begins on Nov. 1, is pegged at 3.72 million tonnes, down from this year’s estimated harvest of 3.88 million tonnes.

The updated Korea Rural Economic Institute (KREI) farm planting survey in May 2022 indicated that planting area will total 722,000 hectares, down 1.4% from its previous survey in December 2021.

“The decline in planting area is due to sluggish market prices and government efforts to reduce rice acreage following overproduction in the previous year,” FAS said.

Forecast rice imports for 2022-23 remain unchanged from the previous report at 450,000 tonnes (milled basis), consisting of 210,000 tonnes from 2022 tariff-rate quota (TRQ) contracts and 240,000 tonnes from 2023 TRQ contracts.