How El Niño is putting world rice supplies in jeopardy

Normally by this time of year Thongpoon Moonchan-song's fields are submerged in still waters, with scattered rice plants reaching up to her knees. The waters are usually so abundant that if you plunge a net into the fields, you can draw out fish and crab to eat.

- Rebecca Ratcliffe and Navaon Siradapuvadol 

This year, though, is different. Rain has been falling in her village in Uttaradit province in the north of Thailand, but it has not been heavy or consistent enough.

The canal next to Thongpoon's family home is dry. Her family has given up hope of harvesting any rice. "Usually it would be heavy rain and it would be flooded in the canal - this year there has been no water at all. We had to sow dry," said her daughter, Thanunkan Potudomsin. "Even if it does rain a lot now, the time when the rice would grow to give a yield has already passed. It's all dried up."

Across south and south-east Asia, unpredictable weather is threatening supplies of rice, a staple food for more than half the world's population. In July, India, the world's largest rice exporter, imposed an export ban on non-basmati white rice after crops were damaged by heavy rains. The ban - along with concerns over the arrival of the El Niño phenomenon, which brings hotter, drier weather across the region - has caused prices in key exporting countries Thailand and Vietnam to soar by about 20%, according to a recent Reuters report.

The ripple effects have been felt widely. Myanmar said it plans to temporarily halt exports, and Indonesia said it wants to import more from neighbouring countries to buffer its stocks. In the Philippines, the government has imposed a rice price cap to protect the poorest consumers, with the country's National Economic and Development Authority warning of "difficult times" and referring to El Niño as a "major disruptor".