The cash market did the talking this fortnight. Indian 1509 Sela rice opened August at $89.05 per quintal, held around $93 through the middle of the month, then pushed to $98.33 to $99.37 by the close, a gain of roughly 11% sustained across four weeks. The finer 1401 Steam moved from $99.37 to $101.46 up to $104.60 to $105.65 over the same window.
The reason is repeated across nearly every dispatch. Kharif production across Madhya Pradesh, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Punjab came in an estimated 40% below normal on excess rain and flooding. Mills and mandis are holding almost no old paddy or finished basmati, and exporters with pending August and September shipment contracts kept bidding regardless of price. One dispatch put at least $0.10 per kilogram of further upside on the table, roughly $10 per quintal, and added there is no guarantee mills can even source enough paddy to fill the contracts they have already signed. Note that separate August readings quoted fresh Sathi origin 1509 Sela at $85.77 to $86.82, a cheaper sub grade that should not be read against the standard.
Away from price, India lost a long running trademark case. On 12 August Australia’s Federal Court dismissed an appeal by the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority to register Basmati as a certification trademark in Australia, upholding a 2022 rejection and ordering APEDA to cover costs. It is worth being precise about what that decided, because parts of the trade coverage have overstated it. The court did not rule on basmati’s geographic origin, and it does not stop Indian exports to Australia or block Indian exporters from selling there. What it found is narrower: the word cannot function as a certification trademark under Australian law because it does not distinguish APEDA certified rice from basmati legitimately grown elsewhere, Pakistan included. New Zealand reached the same conclusion in 2024 and Kenya before that. India can still appeal to the High Court.
Domestically there is better news. Gujarat’s paddy sowing deficit, a 34% shortfall in July, has essentially closed. State data through 24 August show 880,150 hectares transplanted against 891,662 at the same point last year, a gap of 1.29%, and 0.94% behind the state’s own three year average. Central and South Gujarat are running near normal, with Saurashtra still the laggard.
Two longer term threads sit underneath all of it. Sri Lanka approved crushing 30,000 tonnes of paddy from its Paddy Marketing Board reserves to shore up domestic supply. And India’s yield growth has slowed hard, from 9.4% annual improvement in 2001/02 to just 0.5% in 2025/26, with average yield stuck near 2,915 kilograms per hectare and hybrid acreage still only 7% to 8% of the crop.
