The wheat It is one of the most important cereals in the world. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), this has been a staple food for more than 8,000 years and ranks as the third most cultivated cereal in the world only below corn and rice.
FAO data indicates that in the 2021-2022 period the world produced 778.3 million tons of wheat, while world wheat consumption in the same period stood at 773.2 million tons.
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But the crisis in Ukraine has strongly affected wheat production, as Russia and Ukraine are major agricultural powers, and their wheat, corn and sunflowers, in particular, supply the world market.
It is estimated that between 20 and 25 million tons of grain have been blocked in Ukrainian ports since the beginning of the invasion on February 24, causing prices to skyrocket globally.
According to the World Food Programme, an additional 47 million people, to a total of 345 million, will be acutely food insecure or at high risk of becoming acutely food insecure in 82 countries by the end of this year due to some effects of the war between kyiv and Moscow.
In addition, according to the FAO, the forecast for 2022 is that world wheat production may drop to 770.3 million tons, eight million tons less than the previous period.
These are the countries that produce and consume the most wheat in the world, according to data from the FAO and the United States Department of Agriculture.
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The largest wheat producers in the world
Data published by the FAO indicate that China It is the largest producer of wheat in the world. Figures for 2020 indicate that Mainland China produced 134,250,000 tons of wheat in that year.
The second largest producer of wheat in the world is India, which in 2020 produced a total of 107.5 million tons of this cereal.
In third place is Russia, strongly affected in 2022 by the sanctions imposed by Western countries due to the invasion of Ukraine. In 2020, this country produced a total of 85,896,326 tons of wheat.
The United States ranks fourth, after producing a total of 49,690,680 tons of wheat in 2020. And Canada follows in fifth place, with a wheat production of 35 million tons in 2020.
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The largest consumers of wheat
According to data from the United States Department of Agriculture, China is at the same time the country with the highest domestic consumption of wheat.
This Asian country consumed 144,000 million tons of wheat in 2021-2022. It is followed by India, with 105,000 million tons of wheat consumed in the same period.
Another of the great consumers of wheat was Russia, in third place, with a consumption of 42,250 million tons.
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In fourth place is the United States, which according to the most recent data consumed 30,210 million tons of wheat in the 2021-2022 period. In fifth place is Pakistan, with a consumption of 27,700 million tons of this cereal.
Other countries with significant consumption were Turkey, Egypt, Iran and the United Kingdom, which follow the top 10 of the countries with the highest consumption of wheat in the world.
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