Cyclone damage could hit Myanmar rice exports: FAO

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Cyclone damage to rice crops and inventories in Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta and other areas may impair its exports of the grain in 2008 and further tighten the world rice market, the U.N. food agency said on Wednesday.

The storm, which battered five states accounting for 65 percent of the former Burma's rice output, may trigger "localized food shortages" and require imports from neighbors, it said.

"Damage to annual crops is expected, in particular on rice, palm oil and rubber plantations," the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said in an early assessment of the damage.

The cyclone, which has killed nearly 22,500 people and made up to one million homeless, left 5,000 sq km (1,931 sq mile) in the delta, Myanmar's rice bowl, underwater.

With global stocks for the staple food of half of the world's population halved since 2001 and prices soaring due to export curbs by some producers, the FAO said lower exports or larger imports by Myanmar "would lead to a further tightening of the world rice market".

The FAO said its 2007 production estimate of 30.02 million tonnes of paddy, or an equivalent 18.9 million tonnes of milled rice, may "be downgraded somewhat once the extent of the damage is better known".

The impact on rice supplies already harvested might also be serious due to poor storage facilities.

"If post-harvest losses turn out being large, localized food shortages in the short term may result," the FAO said.

"Such losses could also impair the country's ability and government decision to export rice in 2008," it said.

The FAO said its unofficial export estimate of 600,000 tonnes for Myanmar this year is based on the amount the government had allowed exporters to buy from farmers for sale abroad.

The last official export figure it had from the government was 114 tonnes in 2004, the FAO said.

Myanmar state media said in April the country had exported about 400,000 tonnes of rice in the past 12 months because it had enough supplies to feed its 53 million people.

Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan said on Tuesday the impact of the cyclone on rice stocks was not serious.

FOOD SECURITY

Myanmar, the world's largest rice exporter when it won independence from Britain in 1948, surrendered that title to Thailand after four decades of disastrous economic policies by the ruling military.

Vietnam has also eclipsed its regional neighbor and competes with India for the number two export slot.

But the FAO's estimate of apparent per capita consumption of 234 kg per person in Myanmar, compared to 131 kg in Thailand and 187 kg in Vietnam, highlighted the critical role rice plays in the country's food security.

"Such consumption levels are not impossible, especially in a poor country such as Myanmar," FAO senior economist Concepcion Calpe said in an email.

It showed "how devastating it would be if the recent disaster resulted in severe rice shortages in the next six to seven months, before the 2008 main paddy crop is harvested around November", he said.

(Editing by Bill Tarrant)