Agriculture Reference
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to import more than 2 million tons of rice to meet the demand. Some agri-
cultural experts predicted that rice shortages would increase in Asia and
threaten regional stability. But by early 1999, the La Niña event brought
heavy rainfall to much of Southeast Asia, and rice harvests in Indonesia
and the Philippines recovered. Indonesia, the world's largest rice importer,
bought less than half as much rice as it imported in 1998, while the Philip-
pines enjoyed its highest rice stocks in 15 years. Major rice exporters such
as Thailand and Vietnam reaped windfall profits from the 1997-98 El Niño
as the export price of rice nearly doubled. But Thailand's rice exports de-
clined in 1999, and rice prices plummeted. Global rice trade, normally av-
eraging 18-20 million tons per year, expanded to nearly 27 million tons in
1998 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1999).
[32],
ENSO and Drought in Oceania
A
ustralia and Oceania are severely affected by the lack of rains attributed
to
the warm phase of ENSO (Stone and Auliciems, 1992). Usually, El Niño
ev
ents result in reduced rainfall across eastern and northern Australia,
pa
rticularly during winter, spring, and early summer. However, the precise
na
ture of the impact differs markedly from one event to another, even
w
ith similar changes and patterns in the Pacific Ocean. For example, the
19
82-83 and 1997-98 events were both very strong, but their impacts
in
Australia were completely different. Eastern and southern Australia
w
ere gripped by severe droughts during 1982-83, while southern Australia
ex
perienced heat-wave conditions and bushfires, and virtually two-third of
ea
stern Australia recorded extremely low rainfall. But in 1997, average or
ab
ove-average rainfalls were common in May, and a dry spell over winter
w
as broken by widespread, heavy rains in September.
In Papua New Guinea, the largest developing country in the southwest
Pa
cific region, El Niño has been linked to the severe droughts of 1896,
19
02,1914, 1972, and 1982 (Barr et al., 2001). During the 1997-98 El
N
iño, the lives of about 80,000-300,000 people were at risk due to the
pr
olonged droughts, and rice cultivation was severely affected, forcing the
go
vernment to import rice to insure the food availability. The1997-98 El
N
iño also caused drought in Fiji Islands, reducing sugarcane production
by
50% (Kaloumaira et al., 2001).
Line
——
12.
——
Norm
PgEn
[32],
E
NSO and Drought in Southeast Asia
The ENSO produces a profound impact on climate and weather in south-
east Asia (Indonesia, Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar,
Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand) by causing large-scale changes in the at-
mospheric circulation in the region (Sirabaha and Caesar, 2000). In the
Philippines, for instance, El Niño significantly impacts the main rainfall
patterns. Due to the 1997-98 event, a dry spell with severe drought affected
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