India has been the world’s largest rice exporter since 2011-12. In 2024-25, its exports of 21.69 million tonnes (mt), according to the US Department of Agriculture, was way above Thailand’s 7.86 mt and Vietnam’s 8.06 mt.In 2024-25, India also became the world’s biggest rice producer, with its estimated 150 mt output surpassing China’s 145.28 mt.The challenge lies in sustaining this leadership position, from an environmental and financial standpoint.Paddy (rice with husk) is a water-guzzling crop. A single irrigation, for covering one acre of land to a depth of 2.5 cm, requires 101,171.5 litres of water.For paddy, the water level in the field has to be maintained at about 5 cm for extended periods, primarily for controlling weeds: Water acts as a natural herbicide against the weeds that, unlike paddy plants, cannot survive in submerged conditions.Also read | India has surpassed China in rice production. But this love for paddy is not without pitfallsThe number of irrigations for paddy ranges, depending upon the crop’s duration and planting time, from 20 to over 30. Taking 25 irrigations at 5 cm depth, a paddy crop grown under the conventional transplanting-cum-continuous flooding system would consume about 5 million litres of water per acre. Assuming a paddy yield of 2.5 tonnes per acre, it translates into 2,000 litres for every kg of harvested grain and 3,000 litres for rice at two-thirds milling recovery. Ergo, for every kg of rice that India ships out, it also indirectly exports 3,000 litres of water.Financial sustainabilityStory continues below this adThe accompanying table shows India’s exports of rice, both basmati and non-basmati, in quantity as well as value terms for recent years. Basmati rice fetches more dollars from every kg of grain going out of the country.In 2023-24 and 2024-25, basmati exports, at 5-6 mt, were less than half the 11-14 mt of non-basmati rice. But the value of exports from both was more or less the same: $5.8-5.9 billion for basmati and $4.5-6.5 billion for non-basmati. The average unit value realisation from basmati exports was Rs 82.9-92.3 per kg, as against Rs 34-39.2/kg for non-basmati during the two years.Basmati rice, thus, fetches more dollars from every kg of grain going out of the country.That’s not all. Basmati paddy consumes less water. Non-basmati varieties are mostly transplanted in June at the peak of summer, necessitating irrigating the fields almost daily during this time. Basmati varieties are suitable for transplanting in July with the monsoon rains, enabling the crop’s flowering and grain development to happen during October, when day temperatures fall to 30-31°C. The cool climate is ideal for accumulation of 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline, the highly volatile compound contributing to the characteristic fragrance of basmati grains. The aroma retention is less if transplantation is in June and grain-filling in September, when temperatures are still high.Story continues below this adSimply put, basmati exports bring more bang for not only every kg of rice produced, but also for every litre of water consumed.Also read | Why India’s rice production surge raises concerns over food security, sustainability“We should export more of basmati. In non-basmati, too, we must promote short-grain aromatic GI (geographical indications)-protected varieties like Kalanamak and Adamchini (from eastern Uttar Pradesh), Katarni (Bihar), Gobindobhog (West Bengal), Badshah Bhog (Chhattisgarh), Koraput Kalajeera (Odisha), Wayanad Jeerakasala and Gandhakasala (Kerala), and Seeraga Samba (Tamil Nadu). The idea is to move from a commodity rice to a high-value and less water-intensive rice exporter,” says Ashok Kumar Singh, former director of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI) in New Delhi.India’s basmati rice shipments have risen from 0.6-0.7 mt (worth $400-450 million) annually in the early 2000s to 5-6 mt ($5.8-5.9 billion) during the last two years, thanks largely to the blockbuster varieties bred by IARI scientists. These combine traditional basmati’s unique grain attributes (aroma, non-stickiness and elongation upon cooking) with the higher yields of modern dwarf varieties.Pusa Basmati-1509, a variety developed by Singh (he has been selected for the Padma Shri award this year), yields 2.5 tonnes of paddy per acre with a seed-to-grain maturity of only 115-120 days. This compares with the hardly one-tonne from traditional tall varieties such as Taraori and Dehraduni, which also take 155-160 days from nursery sowing to harvesting.Story continues below this adThe total area planted to rice in India’s registered GI region for basmati is around 6.2 million hectares (mh): 3.1 mh in Punjab, 1.3 mh in Haryana, 1.5 mh in western UP, 0.12 mh in Uttarakhand, 0.1 mh in Jammu and 0.05 mh in Himachal Pradesh. Within that, the actual basmati-sown area is just over 2.1 mh, including 0.8 mh each in Punjab and Haryana and 0.5 mh in western UP. Padma Shri awardee basmati rice breeder Ashok Kumar Singh (centre) at a farmer’s field in Haryana’s Sirsa district.“Basmati cultivation can be expanded to cover the entire 6.2 mh GI area. It will boost India’s basmati production and exports, while making rice farming more sustainable in Punjab and Haryana. Also, the government can step up procurement of non-basmati paddy in eastern UP, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam, where groundwater depletion is not significant and farmers aren’t receiving minimum support prices,” notes Singh.For basmati, the government can declare a floor price — below which no purchase of paddy from farmers would be allowed in mandi auctions. Basmati’s premium quality, plus the well-developed agricultural produce market infrastructure in Punjab and Haryana, should make this practically enforceable.Breeding strategiesIARI scientists have, more recently, incorporated genes from the wild relatives and landrace cultivars of paddy into their widely-grown Pusa Basmati-1509, 1121 and 1401 varieties. Story continues below this adThese genes, identified through a technique called marker-assisted selection, code for proteins that confer resistance to bacterial leaf blight and rice blast fungal disease. The resultant disease-resistant versions of the same varieties were released in late-2021 as Pusa Basmati-1847, 1885 and 1886 respectively.“In-built resistance to bacterial blight and blast through such breeding obviates the need for spraying streptomycin-tetracycline antibiotics and tricyclazole, azoxystrobin or picoxystrobin fungicides. Minimising the use of crop protection chemicals also helps preserve the premium value of Indian basmati in the global market,” Singh explains.Also read | The villain in the Indian diet is neither roti nor riceA similar “genetic”, as opposed to “chemical”, approach is now being adopted to address the threats from other diseases (bakanae, false smut and brown spot) and insect pests (stem borer, leaf folder, brown plant hopper and white-backed plant hopper). This entails screening large plant populations from indigenous landraces to identify genes for disease and pest resistance or drought, heat and salinity tolerance traits.Singh sees the next breakthroughs coming from “predictive breeding” that combines genomic selection and machine learning (ML). Breeders here use both genomic (identifying genes associated with specific traits) and phenotypic (physically observable characteristics) data from large plant populations to build ML models. The models, then, predict the breeding value of new candidate plants based solely on their genotypic data (DNA) and select the best parental lines for making crosses.Story continues below this ad“Breeding so far has been based on phenotyping, i.e. evaluating and selecting plants for desired traits through physical observation and external appearance. Predictive and speed breeding will significantly reduce the time and effort for varietal development,” adds Singh.