Rice is “the staple food of Southeast Asia.”[1] The region’s total rice production in 2010-11 reached 110 million tonnes and is expected to reach 128 million tonnes by 2021. This is clearly not a matter of a subsistence crop. Rice economics in Southeast Asia is “multifaceted.” Cambodia, one of the smaller Southeast Asian countries, alone exported 1,250,000 metric tonnes of rice in 2017-18. Its western neighbor, Thailand, was (after India) the world’s second-largest rice exporter, selling 10,200,000 tonnes of its rice abroad. Cambodia’s eastern neighbor, Vietnam, was the world’s third-largest, exporting 6,700,000 tonnes of rice in 2017-18.[2]

[1] Arief Subhan, “The Economics of Rice in Southeast Asia,” ASEAN Post, 11 April 2018: https://theaseanpost.com/article/economics-rice-southeast-asia-0

[2] Arief Subhan, “Economics of Rice in Southeast Asia.”