Who buys rice, and in what quantity

Rice is the largest single commodity trade RNG works in. Global imports run at about USD 34.6 billion a year, and India is the dominant supplier: APEDA recorded Indian rice exports of 20.19 million tonnes worth USD 12.47 billion in 2024-25, roughly a third of world trade by value.

Saudi Arabia is the single most important relationship in Indian rice: around USD 1.3 billion of that country’s imports come from India, more than any other origin. The United States takes about USD 400.9 million of Indian rice. Those two markets, plus the UK, are where organic Indian rice actually sells.

The 10% border check, and why organic does not exempt you

This is the most expensive thing most buyers of Indian rice do not know.

Regulation (EU) 2019/1793 lists goods for increased official controls by CN code and country of origin. It does not distinguish organic from conventional. Rice from India, CN 1006, sits in Annex I for pesticide residues at a frequency of 10 per cent identity and physical checks. That figure is confirmed in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/194 of 28 January 2026, which applies from 18 February 2026.

Roughly one container in ten is held and sampled. Your organic certificate is not a reason for it to be released. The testing frequency on Indian rice was raised from zero to 10 per cent in July 2024 and has stayed there; Pakistani rice sits at 5 per cent.

There is one piece of good news in the same regulation. The aflatoxin and ochratoxin A listing for Indian rice was deleted in the January 2026 revision, on the stated basis that an increased level of official controls for those hazards is no longer justified. Rice from India now carries a single hazard entry, pesticide residues, and does not appear in Annex II at all. That is a genuine improvement and it reflects years of better aflatoxin control at origin.

The limits you are being tested against

More than half of rice pesticide cases involve several compounds at once rather than a single exceedance, which matters for how you write your testing scope: a single-analyte check on tricyclazole will not protect you.

Why genuinely organic rice can still show a trace

Here is the part that is specific to rice and that we would rather you heard from us.

Paddy is flood irrigated, and in Indian smallholder landscapes the water arrives through shared channels. A conventional plot upstream applying a fungicide puts that compound into water that reaches the certified organic plot downstream. For a dryland crop such as sesame or cumin, the drift vector is airborne and can be managed with buffer strips and field margins. For rice, the vector is water, and water is far harder to isolate than air.

At an MRL of 0.01 mg/kg — the limit of quantification — a trace arriving that way is detectable. This is not an argument that detections do not matter. It is an argument for asking the right question when one appears: what concentration, and is that concentration consistent with irrigation carry-over or with deliberate application? Those two answers sit orders of magnitude apart, and a competent buyer distinguishes them.

It is also an argument for asking your supplier about water, not just about land. A producer group that can describe its irrigation source and its position relative to conventional plots is telling you something an organic certificate does not.

Arsenic: the risk organic certification does not touch

Inorganic arsenic is taken up by the rice plant from soil and irrigation water. Flooded paddy conditions mobilise it, which is why rice accumulates arsenic in a way that wheat and most other cereals do not. It is not something that is applied, so there is nothing for an organic standard to prohibit. NPOP, the USDA National Organic Program and Regulation (EU) 2018/848 are all silent on it, because all three are process standards governing inputs.

Regulation (EU) 2023/465, applying from 26 March 2023, sets these maximum levels for inorganic arsenic:

Read the first two lines again

Husked rice is permitted more arsenic than milled white rice — 0.25 against 0.15 mg/kg. That is not a loophole. It is the regulator writing a biological fact into law: arsenic concentrates in the bran layer, and milling removes the bran. Brown rice keeps the bran, so brown rice keeps the arsenic.

Which produces an uncomfortable conclusion for the organic trade. Organic wholegrain brown rice is marketed as the healthiest form of the product and sold at the highest premium to the most health-conscious buyer. It is also the highest-arsenic form of the crop. And the organic label is very often the thing that stops the buyer asking the arsenic question at all, because the label feels like it has already answered it.

We sell organic brown rice. We would still rather you specified inorganic arsenic on the contract and tested for it.

The three layers of organic paperwork

Organic rice arriving in a regulated market has to satisfy three separate systems. They are not alternatives and a certificate from one does not discharge the others.

That fourth line matters more in rice than in most organic commodities. A certified organic paddy that is milled on a line which ran conventional rice an hour earlier, without a validated flush, is a carry-over risk that the organic certificate on the farm does not cover.

Variety, origin and a disclosure about our own position

Basmati, pandan and jasmine are the varieties most commonly carried as certified organic into Europe; certification is far less common for minor varieties, which is worth knowing if you are specifying something unusual.

Our own disclosure. We are based in Rajkot, Gujarat. Gujarat is not a basmati state. Basmati has a registered geographical indication covering the Indo-Gangetic plain in north India, which means that when we quote organic basmati we are buying into a chain that begins several states away from our office — Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh — and non-basmati organic typically comes from the east and south. This is different from our groundnut, sesame and cumin, which come from the Saurashtra belt we sit in and where we know the growers directly.

So on rice, ask us harder questions than you would on our home-belt crops. Specifically: which district, which producer group, which mill, and whether the paddy is inside the GI area if you are buying basmati. If a Gujarat-based exporter cannot answer those four, you are talking to a trader with a certificate rather than a supply chain.

Policy volatility is a real supply risk, and it is ours

India banned non-basmati white rice exports in July 2023. The prohibition was lifted on 28 September 2024, initially with a minimum export price of USD 490 per tonne, and the floor price was removed on 23 October 2024. In between, contracts were interrupted and buyers who had single-sourced from India had to find cover at short notice.

That history is a reason to think carefully about origin risk on a multi-year organic rice programme. India is the largest and usually the cheapest origin, and it is also the origin with the most interventionist recent export policy. Thailand and Vietnam have been steadier on policy, though neither offers the organic basmati that only north India can.

If you are building a programme that must not be interrupted, dual-source it or write a force majeure clause that actually contemplates an export prohibition. We would rather say that than lose a client to a policy change we cannot control.

Organic is not an analytical zero

This applies to every organic commodity and it is worth repeating. Organic certification governs what may be applied. It does not promise that nothing will ever be detected.

Drift, shared irrigation water, shared drying floors, shared milling lines and shared transport all produce low-level detections in genuinely organic material. The question a competent buyer asks on a positive result is not “is this organic?” but “at what concentration, and is that concentration consistent with carry-over or with application?” Carry-over sits in parts per billion. A result in parts per million is a traceability question and should be investigated as one.

A supplier who tells you their organic rice will test at zero for everything is either not testing or not telling you the results. For rice specifically, with its water-borne carry-over vector and a 0.01 mg/kg default MRL, that claim should increase your suspicion rather than reduce it.

What to ask before you place the order

1. The NPOP transaction certificate for the specific lot, verified directly with the certifying body.
2. A multi-residue pesticide screen on the shipped lot from an accredited laboratory — not a single-analyte tricyclazole check.
3. Inorganic arsenic by a speciated method, on the shipped lot, stated as inorganic and not total.
4. The irrigation source and the position of the organic plots relative to conventional paddy upstream.
5. The mill’s segregation protocol and the changeover record for the run that produced your lot.
6. Variety, district and producer group — and for basmati, confirmation that the paddy sits inside the GI area.
7. For the United States: the NOP Import Certificate, raised before the goods move.
8. For the EU: the COI in TRACES NT, and an acceptance that a 10 per cent border check applies to your organic consignment like any other.

Frequently asked questions

Does an organic certificate exempt rice from EU border checks?

No. Regulation (EU) 2019/1793 lists goods by CN code and country of origin, not by organic status. Rice from India under CN 1006 is listed in Annex I for pesticide residues at a 10 per cent frequency of identity and physical checks, confirmed in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/194 of 28 January 2026. Roughly one consignment in ten is pulled, organic or not.

Does organic certification protect against arsenic in rice?

No. Inorganic arsenic enters rice by uptake from soil and irrigation water under flooded paddy conditions. It is not an applied input, so nothing in NPOP, the USDA National Organic Program or Regulation (EU) 2018/848 addresses it. Arsenic has to be managed by field selection, water management and analysis on the shipped lot.

Why does brown rice have a higher arsenic limit than white rice?

Because arsenic concentrates in the bran layer that milling removes. Regulation (EU) 2023/465, applying from 26 March 2023, sets 0.15 mg/kg inorganic arsenic for polished or milled non-parboiled rice but 0.25 mg/kg for parboiled and husked rice. The higher limit is an acknowledgement that wholegrain rice carries more arsenic, not a relaxation. Organic brown rice is therefore the highest-arsenic form of the product most often sold as the healthiest.

What are the EU pesticide limits that catch Indian rice?

Tricyclazole sits at 0.01 mg/kg, cut from 1 mg/kg. Chlorpyrifos is at 0.01 mg/kg and is among the most common single-pesticide exceedances in rice. Buprofezin was reduced from 0.5 to 0.01 mg/kg in 2019. Where no specific MRL exists the default of 0.01 mg/kg applies, which is effectively the limit of quantification.

How can genuinely organic rice still show a pesticide residue?

Paddy is flood irrigated from shared channels. A conventional plot upstream applying a fungicide puts that compound into water that reaches the organic plot downstream. For a dryland crop the drift vector is airborne and can be buffered with field margins; for rice the vector is water, which is far harder to isolate. At an MRL of 0.01 mg/kg, a trace arriving this way is detectable. The question on a positive result is the concentration, not the certificate.

• No. Regulation (EU) 2019/1793 lists goods by CN code and country of origin, not by organic status. Rice from India under CN 1006 is listed in Annex I for pesticide residues at a 10 per cent frequency of identity and physical checks, confirmed in Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/194 of 28 January 2026. Roughly one consignment in ten is pulled, organic or not.
• No. Inorganic arsenic enters rice by uptake from soil and irrigation water under flooded paddy conditions. It is not an applied input, so nothing in NPOP, the USDA National Organic Program or Regulation (EU) 2018/848 addresses it. Arsenic has to be managed by field selection, water management and analysis on the shipped lot.
• Because arsenic concentrates in the bran layer that milling removes. Regulation (EU) 2023/465, applying from 26 March 2023, sets 0.15 mg/kg inorganic arsenic for polished or milled non-parboiled rice but 0.25 mg/kg for parboiled and husked rice. The higher limit is an acknowledgement that wholegrain rice carries more arsenic, not a relaxation. Organic brown rice is therefore the highest-arsenic form of the product most often sold as the healthiest.
• Tricyclazole sits at 0.01 mg/kg, cut from 1 mg/kg. Chlorpyrifos is at 0.01 mg/kg and is among the most common single-pesticide exceedances in rice. Buprofezin was reduced from 0.5 to 0.01 mg/kg in 2019. Where no specific MRL exists the default of 0.01 mg/kg applies, which is effectively the limit of quantification.

Why we are writing in these five languages, and the one substitution we made. English covers the United States, the United Kingdom and the Philippines, where the import trade is conducted in English. Arabic covers Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the UAE — about USD 3.8 billion between them, the largest single-language bloc in rice by a wide margin. Chinese covers China. French covers Côte d’Ivoire, Benin and France, about USD 2.7 billion. The fifth is German, and Germany does not appear in the table above. We chose it anyway because this is an organic guide and Germany is the largest organic food market in Europe, which is where organic rice demand concentrates rather than where total rice volume does. Vietnam at number six would have been the volume-driven choice; it buys bulk rice for milling and re-export, not organic. We can write the Vietnamese article if you want it.