This paper examined the trend in Asian rice production, role of rice in human nutrition and documents
structure of rice market in major Asian Countries, by analyzing supply demand and trade scenarios
for the fast five decades. Country wise data from FAOSTAT and WTO were collected for the past five
decades, to analyze key issues related to rice sector with special focus on rice markets in Asia. Rice
Area and production has been increased significantly at higher rate than the population growth rate in
Asia over the past fifty years. This resulted in increase of per capita availability of rice and contributed
significantly to nutrition security. However, there are wide imbalances in supply-demand across Asian
countries .Thus rice trade has become a major global economic activity in the recent past. The structural
changes in global rice markets are discussed in detail in the paper.