South America rice export to fall 20 percent

Paddy rice exports from four South American producers in the 2012/2013 trading season would fall around a fifth from this year to a combined 2.4 million tonnes, after shipments tripled in the current season, a senior agricultural researcher said on Friday.
The net paddy export by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay to countries outside the Mercosur economic block would fall from 3.05 million tonnes traded in the current 2011/2012 season, Bruno Lanfranco of the National Agricultural Research Institute of Uruguay said. "The yield will be more or less the same, but the planting area will be reduced," he told Reuters in an interview. Lanfranco was referring to the region's production season that began this month and ends next April, from which the grain to be harvested will be used for trading inside and outside the four nations during March 2012/February 2013.