OECD Inventory of Export Restrictions on Staple Crops

1. International trade and export restrictions on staple crops

Key messages

• Export restrictions on staple crops increased between January 2024 and July 2024, and then decreased by nearly 50% from August 2024 to June 2025. This sharp decline followed a period from 2018 onwards which saw an overall increase in export restrictions.

• The sharp decline coincided with the removal of several pre-existing export restrictions by major players and relatively fewer introductions of export restrictions overall. Notably, India removed its export prohibitions, quotas, taxes, and minimum export prices (MEPs) on rice, thus removing nearly all its rice-targeted export restrictions with the exception of its licensing requirements. Argentina ended its export quota on maize and removed its export tax on rice. Russia removed its export taxes on rice and soybeans and ended its export prohibition on wheat.

• Approximately 85% of export restrictions on staple crops between January 2024 and June 2025 were implemented by four countries: India, Russia, Argentina, and Ukraine.

• In the context of a highly interdependent global economy, monitoring export restrictions on staple crops in a consistent and transparent way is crucial to reducing uncertainty surrounding these measures and to helping market participants and policymakers develop more effective responses to crises.

Countries tend to introduce export restrictions on staple foods when food prices are rising or when there are expectations that prices will increase. The objective of introducing such measures is mostly to increase availability and to lower prices of staple foods on the domestic market, as well as to insulate domestic markets from price surges and volatility on the international market.

Past experience has shown that these policies can be detrimental to domestic and global markets. Their effectiveness at stabilising domestic prices and increasing domestic food availability and access is unclear, with studies showing mixed results depending on the study, country, and commodity (Akter, 2022[1]). Such policies can also exacerbate global food price volatility and severely affect import-dependent countries (Anderson, Ivanic and Martin, 2013[2]) (Deuss, 2017[3]). In addition, the uncertainty over whether export restrictions will be implemented and their duration can lead individuals to make decisions based on incomplete information, which in turn can have significant and lasting consequences.

Staple crops are often the primary target of export restrictions and drove the price increases during the 2007-08 food price crisis. Restrictions on staple crop exports also emerged early in the COVID-19 pandemic and were re-introduced following the Russian Federation’s (hereafter “Russia”) war of aggression against Ukraine (OECD, 2024[4]). To reduce the uncertainty surrounding such measures and help market participants and policymakers develop more effective responses, it is crucial to monitor these restrictions in a consistent and transparent way.

The OECD database on Export Restrictions on Staple Crops collects information on export restrictions on staple crops that dates from 2007 onwards. It provides detailed information that allows for country-specific analysis and also presents the information in an aggregate way to allow for comparisons across countries, measures, and commodities. The evolution of these export restrictions can also be tracked over time.

The database is updated annually, with the present update reporting on export restrictions that were implemented or removed between April 2024 and June 2025.