Global Progress
Rice
Photo: Xaume Olleros / RTI
FFI estimates that 9% of the world's industrially milled rice is fortified. See FFI’s latest annual report for an explanation of the calculation.
Although, through the unadjusted estimates, we found an overall decrease (~3.2%) in rice available for human consumption globally, the amount and proportion of industrially processed rice and fortified rice increased. In 2022 approximately 4.1% of industrially milled rice was fortified, up from around 1.2% in 2021. India is the most significant contributor to this increase. Multiple Indian states are expanding their distribution of fortified rice via social support systems, meaning that those most vulnerable to micronutrient deficiencies are now receiving fortified rice. The amount of fortified rice distributed in India increased each month in 2022, suggesting the amount of industrially processed rice that is fortified will increase in 2023. Despite these positive steps, we estimate that less than 10% of the rice that FFI considers a good opportunity for fortification is being fortified. This gap between opportunity and reality represents hundreds of millions of people who consume rice daily and would benefit from the scaling up of rice fortification.
(a) FAO data with additional, openly available sources.
2021 estimates: 2019 FAOSTAT, New Food Balances, Food (element 5142) 2019 Data: http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS
2022 estimates: 2020 FAOSTAT, Supply Utilization Accounts, Food (element 5141) 2020 Data: https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/SCL
(b) FFI calculations.
