Speak wheat It amounts to talking about human history. Since the first fixed and regular settlements appeared in the Middle East, the human being has used wheat to obtain food in one way or another. Whether in the form of primitive breads or beers, cultivation has accompanied cultures and civilizations of all conditions. Today the production of the cereal continues to be transcendental for most of the world.
Any turbulence in your production has a global impact.
We have been able to verify it on account of the Ukraine War. The Slavic country is one of the largest granaries in the world, supplier of 10% of global wheat. Although some European countries are among its main clients, it is Lebanon, Qatar or Tunisia that obtain more than 50% of their grain through Ukraine, as well as other nations based in the Mediterranean basin or in other corners of Asia.
The war and the brake on Ukrainian exports have been the subject of concern among the member states of the European Union, largely due to the direct impact it has had on wheat imports globally: up. The beer, the bread, the pastry, the pasta. Staples in the diet of many countries have run into rising prices, as has happened in other sectors (even before the war in Ukraine).
Ukraine is therefore important. It is even more so in terms of corn (15% worldwide) or sunflower seeds (42%), where it is the leading exporter. But it is not as much as its media prominence has led us to understand. At least if we look at the raw figures for the last twenty years. This is what they have done in VisualCapitalist, translated into this great graph where we can see the largest wheat producers on the planet.
The usual suspect appears in the lead.
China is by far the true champion of wheat. Its vast extensions of cereal have provided humanity 17% of the precious grain during the last twenty years. It is also at the top of the annual calculation: in 2020 it produced 134 million tons, well above India (100) or Ukraine (24). The two Asian giants, in fact, account for 30% of world wheat production. Were they to catch a cold one way or another, the world would find out what a cold is. One for real.
The honor roll is completed by Russia, another gigantic granary (8% worldwide in the accumulated of the past two decades), the United States (8%), the surprising France (5%, always so attached to its farmers), Canada ( 4%), Germany (3.5%), Pakistan (3.4%) and Australia (3.2%). There is no trace of Spain, although we can go to the annual global figures (0.9% for its 8 million tons, very far from the main producers and, consequently, in the balance of importers).
Nothing that could surprise us. Ukraine offers figures really impressive given its demographic and geographic size (similar to that of Spain), but which will always pale before a true demographic titan like China or India. The case of China is not even surprising if we take into account that it is also the leader in terms of consumption. Its 1,000 million long inhabitants demand 19% of the annual production. A figure that will surely grow in the short term.