The world’s top 10 wheat producers were led in 2018 by the European Union, China, India, Russia and the United States, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Wheat is the largest cereal-grass crop in the world. Unlike other cereals, the wheat grain contains a large amount of gluten, the protein that provides the necessary elasticity for excellent bread preparation.

Other major wheat producers in the world were, in descending order: Canada, Ukraine, Pakistan, Australia and Turkey.

Although most wheat is grown for human consumption, other industries use small amounts to produce starch, pasta, malt, dextrose, gluten, alcohol, and other products.

Likewise, inferior and surplus wheat and various milling products are used for livestock feed.

Main wheat producers

The agricultural industry is made up of widely traded commodities, where prices are freely determined based on supply and demand.

The supply side is characterized by a large number of producers, each of whom contributes a small part of total production and therefore has minimal influence on commodity prices, which are generally determined by indices or exchanges in international markets.

Therefore, producers of agricultural products compete to a large extent based on their production costs and their scale of production.

In the ranking of the main wheat producers, the European Union reached 138.3 million tons, followed by China (131.4 million) and India (99.9 million).

At the national level, producers compete under similar conditions, while at the international level, competition is significantly affected, among other factors, by government policies such as subsidies to agricultural producers, which may be important in developed countries.