Contents
- Global rice consumption statistics: USDA and FAO estimates
- Rice consumption statistics by country: USDA domestic-use estimates
- Rice consumption statistics per person in South Korea
- Rice consumption statistics for South Korean farm and non-farm households
- Rice consumption statistics in South Korean food manufacturing
- Per-person rice consumption statistics in Japan
- Thailand rice consumption statistics: national and regional figures
- Sources
Global rice consumption statistics: USDA and FAO estimates
Global rice figures depend on the measure being reported. The USDA’s November 2026 World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) reports rice supply and use on a milled basis. Its “Total Domestic” balance-sheet column includes domestic use and unreported disappearance, so it should not be read as a direct count of rice eaten by households. The estimates aggregate local marketing years. On that basis, USDA estimated world domestic use at 532.68 million metric tons in 2025/26 and projected 538.20 million metric tons in 2026/27. These are separate marketing-year estimates and projections, not calendar-year household intake totals. Source: USDA WASDE, November 10, 2026
| USDA world rice measure, milled basis | Period | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Total domestic use | 2025/26 estimate | 532.68 million metric tons |
| Total domestic use | 2026/27 projection | 538.20 million metric tons |
FAO’s November 6, 2026 Cereal Supply and Demand Brief uses its own global utilization and food-use measures. It forecast overall rice utilization at 558.8 million tonnes in 2026/27, an increase of 0.6%. FAO also forecast global rice food use to rise by just over 4.0 million tonnes, or 1.0%, in that marketing year. The 558.8 million-tonne utilization figure and USDA’s domestic-use total are not interchangeable: they come from different agencies and are described using different measures. The available figures establish that both agencies expected global rice use to increase in 2026/27, while their reported totals should remain attached to their respective definitions. Source: FAO Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, November 6, 2026
Rice consumption statistics by country: USDA domestic-use estimates
The USDA country table provides comparable estimates within its own framework: rice on a milled basis, in million metric tons, for 2025/26. As with the world total, “domestic” includes domestic use and unreported disappearance. It is a national balance-sheet measure, not a per-person measure or a direct tally of meals. The selected country entries below preserve the USDA estimates as published. Source: USDA WASDE, November 10, 2026
| Country | 2025/26 estimated domestic use (million metric tons, milled basis) |
|---|---|
| China | 147.35 |
| India | 121.10 |
| Indonesia | 35.30 |
| Vietnam | 22.25 |
| Philippines | 17.70 |
| Thailand | 12.80 |
| Nigeria | 8.50 |
| Japan | 7.46 |
| Brazil | 7.35 |
| Egypt | 4.15 |
Within this selected set, China and India have the largest reported totals. The table is a selection of country rows, not a complete ranking of every country in the WASDE table. The amounts describe aggregate domestic use across local marketing years; population size, per-person intake, and household food habits are not represented by these totals alone. Thailand’s 12.80 million metric tons here is the USDA 2025/26 balance-sheet estimate. A separate USDA Foreign Agricultural Service report gives a Thailand forecast in a different report and period, covered in the final section.
Rice consumption statistics per person in South Korea
South Korea’s Food Grain Consumption Survey reports annual rice consumption per capita in kilograms. Its series shows a year-by-year decline across the observations supplied here, from 61.9 kg in 2016 to 53.9 kg in 2025. The 2025 survey covers November 1, 2024 through October 31, 2025, so the 2025 label refers to that survey period. The figures are household-survey per-person observations; they are not the same measure as national balance-sheet totals. Source: Statistics Korea, Food Grain Consumption Survey in 2025, Table 2-2
| Year | Annual rice consumption per capita (kg) |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 61.9 |
| 2017 | 61.8 |
| 2018 | 61.0 |
| 2019 | 59.2 |
| 2020 | 57.7 |
| 2021 | 56.9 |
| 2022 | 56.7 |
| 2023 | 56.4 |
| 2024 | 55.8 |
| 2025 | 53.9 |
The series gives readers a consistent annual view for the listed years. Its values should be cited with their units and survey context: kilograms per person per year in the South Korean household survey. The data here do not identify why the recorded amounts changed, nor do they support attributing the trend to a particular demographic, economic, or dietary cause. They show the measured sequence only. Source: Statistics Korea, Food Grain Consumption Survey in 2025, Table 2-2 and survey-period note
Rice consumption statistics for South Korean farm and non-farm households
The same Korean release reports annual per-capita rice consumption by household type. In the selected 2016–2020 observations, the reported farm-household figures are higher than the non-farm figures in each year. The table below keeps the two household categories side by side and preserves the original unit, kilograms per person per year. Source: Statistics Korea, Food Grain Consumption Survey in 2025, Table 4
| Year | Farm households (kg per person) | Non-farm households (kg per person) |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 100.5 | 59.6 |
| 2017 | 96.6 | 59.8 |
| 2018 | 94.6 | 59.2 |
| 2019 | 92.8 | 57.4 |
| 2020 | 90.8 | 56.0 |
Across these rows, the farm-household series moves downward from 100.5 kg in 2016 to 90.8 kg in 2020. The non-farm series is 59.6 kg in 2016, reaches 59.8 kg in 2017, then is reported at 59.2 kg in 2018, 57.4 kg in 2019, and 56.0 kg in 2020. Those are subgroup observations, not estimates of a difference caused by household type. The supplied values do not explain why the groups differ, and the excerpted series stops at 2020; it should not be extended to later years by inference. Source: Statistics Korea, Food Grain Consumption Survey in 2025, Table 4
Rice consumption statistics in South Korean food manufacturing
The survey also records rice consumption by establishments in covered food-products and beverage industries. Its 2025 total for establishments is 932,102 tons. This industry measure differs in both population and unit from the household per-capita statistics: it counts tons consumed by covered establishments, rather than kilograms per person. Several reported industries account for substantial listed amounts, including food-products manufacturing and rice-cake manufacturing. Source: Statistics Korea, Food Grain Consumption Survey in 2025, Table 6
| Covered industry or establishment measure | Rice consumption in 2025 (tons) |
|---|---|
| Total rice consumption of establishments | 932,102 |
| Manufacture of Food Products (10) | 658,262 |
| Manufacture of Rice Cakes (10601) | 263,961 |
| Manufacture of Other Grain Mill Products (10519) | 60,177 |
| Manufacture of Box Lunches (10701) | 46,009 |
| Manufacture of Starches and Starch Products (10520) | 14,973 |
| Manufacture of Sugar Confectioneries and Cocoa Products (10603) | 14,642 |
| Manufacture of Noodles, Macaroni and Similar Farinaceous Products (10820) | 7,081 |
| Manufacture of Soy Sauce and SoyBean Paste (10833) | 6,807 |
These are the specific rows reported in the survey’s industry table, with the total presented separately from individual categories. They should not be added together to derive a new total: the listed categories include broader and narrower industry labels, and the supplied evidence does not establish that these rows are mutually exclusive. The figures describe covered establishments in South Korea in 2025, not all rice use across every business or household. Source: Statistics Korea, Food Grain Consumption Survey in 2025, Table 6
Per-person rice consumption statistics in Japan
Japan’s cited figure reports per-capita annual polished-rice consumption in kilograms. The sequence is shown by Japanese fiscal year, with FY2024 explicitly marked as an estimate. It should therefore be read as a polished-rice series, not a direct comparison with every other country’s rice measure. The figure reports 50.8 kg in FY2020, 51.4 kg in FY2021, 50.9 kg in FY2022, 50.3 kg in FY2023, and an estimated 53.4 kg in FY2024. Source: Highlighting Japan, “Trends in Japan’s Rice Consumption (Per Capita, Annual),” February 2026, Figure 1
| Japanese fiscal year | Per-capita annual polished-rice consumption (kg) |
|---|---|
| FY2020 | 50.8 |
| FY2021 | 51.4 |
| FY2022 | 50.9 |
| FY2023 | 50.3 |
| FY2024 estimate | 53.4 |
The first four values remain in the range from 50.3 kg to 51.4 kg; the final figure is labeled an estimate in the source. No additional explanation for the FY2024 estimate or the changes between years is established by the cited figure, so the figures are best used as a compact fiscal-year series with the estimate status visible. Source: Highlighting Japan, “Trends in Japan’s Rice Consumption (Per Capita, Annual),” February 2026, Figure 1
Thailand rice consumption statistics: national and regional figures
Thailand’s 2026 USDA Foreign Agricultural Service report gives national per-capita figures for 2018 and 2022, and regional per-capita annual figures whose underlying measurement year is not stated. It reports national consumption of 100 kg per person in 2018 and 75 kg in 2022. The report attributes the stated reduction in its narrative to changing food habits; the figures themselves do not provide further detail about that explanation. Source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Grain and Feed Annual: Thailand, 2026, section 1.2
The report also lists regional annual per-capita consumption: 142 kg in northeastern Thailand, 109 kg in the north, 83 kg in the south, and 43 kg in Bangkok and the central plains. Because the underlying year is not stated for these regional rates, they should not be treated as a 2026 observation or aligned automatically with the dated national figures. The report presents them as a regional comparison, with the northeast highest among the four listed areas. Source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Grain and Feed Annual: Thailand, 2026, section 1.2
| Thailand measure | Period stated | Rice consumption |
|---|---|---|
| National per capita | 2018 | 100 kg |
| National per capita | 2022 | 75 kg |
| Northeastern region per capita per year | Measurement year not stated | 142 kg |
| Northern region per capita per year | Measurement year not stated | 109 kg |
| Southern region per capita per year | Measurement year not stated | 83 kg |
| Bangkok and central plains per capita per year | Measurement year not stated | 43 kg |
For a separate national measure, the same USDA FAS report forecasts Thailand’s domestic rice consumption at approximately 12.4 million metric tons in MY 2026/27, milled rice. Its table lists 12,400 in 1000 metric tons for MY 2026/27, and the narrative says the forecast is stable from MY 2025/26. This national forecast is not a per-person rate and should not be compared numerically with the regional kilograms-per-capita figures. Source: USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Grain and Feed Annual: Thailand, 2026, section 1.2 and Table 1.1
Sources
- World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE-677), November 10, 2026
- Food Grain Consumption Survey in 2025
- Figure 1: Trends in Japan’s Rice Consumption (Per Capita, Annual), Highlighting Japan, February 2026
- Grain and Feed Annual: Thailand, 2026
- FAO Cereal Supply and Demand Brief, November 6, 2026