Top Ten Wheat Countries

Prices for Grain Exports & Imports Surge as 2007 Crop Outlook Dims

Sep 1, 2007
Daniel Workman

Wheat field - scott.m.liddell@gmail.com (167550)

Dry spring weather & early wet summers severely reduce wheat harvests in Australia, Canada, America and Europe while world-leading China increases wheat production.

The International Grain Council estimates that world wheat production will drop 7 million from last season to 607 million tonnes for the 2007-8 season. This represents a 3.2% decline from the global harvest of 626.5 million tonnes just two seasons ago.

While world wheat reserves are the lowest in 25 years, demand for grain remains robust.

Economists caution that scarcer wheat will push up food prices and accelerate inflation. That scenario seems increasingly likely, as wheat futures hit a high of US$7.59 this month on the Chicago Board of Trade. This represents a price increase of more than 50% in less than 3 months.

Top Ten Wheat Producers

Below are the leading wheat producers for the 2005-6 season. The top 10 producers accounted for over two-thirds of global wheat harvests.

China … 96.2 million tonnes (15.4% of global wheat production)
India … 72 million (11.5%)
United States … 57.1 million (9.1%)
Russia … 45.5 million (7.3%)
France … 36.9 million (5.9%)
Canada … 25.5 million (4.1%)
Australia … 24.1 million (3.8%)
Germany … 23.6 million (3.8%)
Pakistan … 21.6 million (3.4%)
Turkey … 21 million (3.4%)

This year, Canadian wheat production is expected to drop over 25% from 2005 to 20.3 million tonnes. Only 3 times in the past 20 years has Canada produced less than 21 million tonnes due to severe drought.

American wheat supplies were diminished by an early freeze followed by excessive rain, disease and insect problems. Too much rain also reduced the quality of a large portion of European wheat to be fit for animal feed only.

Dry weather will shrink the Australian wheat harvest by about 15% to an estimated 21 million tonnes this season.

In contrast, China’s wheat production is on target to increase by over 11% from 2005-6.

Top Wheat Exporters

Below are the leading wheat exporters for 2004-5.

United States … 31.6 million tonnes (29.9% of wheat exports from top 10 exporting countries)
Australia … 18.5 million (17.5%)
Canada … 15.1 million (14.3%)
France … 14.9 million (14.1%)
Argentina … 10 million (9.5%)
Russia … 4.7 million (4.5%)
Germany … 3.9 million (3.7%)
United Kingdom … 2.5 million (2.4%)
Kazakhstan … 2.4 million (2.3%)
India … 2 million (1.9%)

China’s wheat exports amounted to 783,934 tonnes in 2004, much less than one tenth of 1 percent of its total production in 2005.

Top Wheat Importers

Below are the leading wheat Importers in 2004.

China … 7.2 million tonnes (14.6% of wheat imports from top 10 importing countries)
Japan … 5.5 million (11.2%)
Italy … 6.5 million (13.2%)
Algeria … 5 million (10.1%)
Brazil … 4.8 million (9.7%)
Indonesia … 4.5 million (9.1%)
Spain … 4.4 million (8.9%)
Egypt … 4.4 million (8.9%)
Mexico … 3.6 million (7.3%)
South Korea … 3.4 million (6.9%)

Wheat-importing nations including Egypt, Iraq and Iran have boosted demand for U.S. wheat to over a million bushels per week.

Should wheat prices continue to rise, the People’s Republic may decide to decrease its imports and instead focus on raking in profits from increased grain exports.

Sources

This analysis is based on latest statistics from the US Census Bureau - Foreign Trade Statistics and CIA World Factbook as of the date of article publication.