In this paper, Andrew McKenzie looks into the economic benefits and limitations of rice futures market in stabilizing prices across multiple years or seasons. He identifies several important cash market characteristics needed to promote the success of a futures contract, namely, adequate cash price volatility, a large competitive and well-defined underlying cash market that lends itself to standardization, minimal government intervention in the underlying cash market, and free flow of public information. The paper concludes that the current cash market characteristics in the ASEAN region are not conducive to the development of a successful rice futures contract at either domestic or regional level.