Maps

Who eats the most rice?

by Andrew Nelson

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 worlds 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 worlds population and has high rates of consumption. China and India alone account for more than 50% of the worlds 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.

Kg/capita/yr
Fig. 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.

< 12

1236

3672

72120

>120

Top 20 per capita rice-consuming countries. Brunei Darussalam Vietnam Laos Bangladesh Myanmar Cambodia Philippines Indonesia Thailand Madagascar 245 166 163 160 157 152 129 125 103 102 Sri Lanka Guinea Sierra Leone Guinea-Bissau Guyana Nepal Korea, DPR China Malaysia Korea, Republic of 97 95 92 85 81 78 77 77 77 76

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

Rest of the world (1.1%) Americas (4.9%) Africa (7.3%) China (28.7%)

Rest of Asia (15.7%)

Vietnam (4.0%)

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).

Bangladesh (6.5%) Indonesia (8.2%) India (23.6%)

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

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Rice Today October-December 2011

Rice Today October-December 2011

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