Question

During the great depression, what happened to the price of rice in asia

Answer 1

Rice fell by ⅔ between 1929 and 1932. The price of persisted high all over in Asia in the summer of 1930.  In 1930, Japan had a very abundant rice harvest. Before, the Japanese government was trailing a deflationary policy in order to sustain the yen, which had just been pegged to the gold standard. The twice impact of deflation and the rich harvest caused the rice price to decrease by about one-third in October 1930. This should have been an only local concern since Japan did not export or import rice, but grain traders all over the world understood this as an indication that the rice price would now be part the fate of the wheat price. In November 1930, the rice price in Liverpool was bargained by half, and Calcutta followed the Liverpool precedent in January 1931. At that point, the rice price experienced a free fall, and by 1933 rice was low-priced than wheat in India. Actually, the making, consumption, and export volume of rice did not drop very much in this period—only the price continued to be low, and so did the income of the producers.