Look at wheat production from 1990 to 2024 and the top of the table is unsurprising: China first at about 140 million tonnes, India second at 113. Both grow enormous amounts and consume almost all of it domestically.
The interesting numbers are further down, and they point the wrong way. United States output has fallen from 74.3 million tonnes to 53.7 — a decline of roughly 28 per cent. France, the European Union's biggest producer, is down about a fifth. In a period when world population grew by more than two and a half billion people, two of the most technologically advanced farming nations grew substantially less wheat.
This is a choice, not a failure
American wheat did not decline because American farmers got worse at growing it. Yields per hectare rose over the period. What fell was the area planted, because farmers moved land into crops that paid better — principally maize and soybeans, both of which feed the livestock and ethanol industries and both of which have seen far stronger demand growth.
Wheat is a comparatively low-margin crop. When the neighbouring field can grow something worth more per hectare, the acreage follows. The maize figures show exactly where a good deal of that land went: American maize production rose by nearly 90 per cent over the same period.
The country that matters most is not in the top two
Russia sits third at about 82.6 million tonnes, with no figure at all in the 1990 column because it was still part of the Soviet Union.
Russia matters more to the rest of the world than China or India do, for a reason the production ranking cannot show: it is consistently the largest wheat exporter. China and India grow more but eat what they grow. When an importing country in North Africa or the Middle East buys wheat, the price it pays is set substantially by the size of the Russian harvest and by Russian export policy.
This is why bread prices in Cairo or Tunis can move on weather in Rostov. It is also why the disruption of Black Sea shipping has repeatedly caused alarm well beyond the region — Ukraine, at about 22.4 million tonnes, is another significant exporter, and the two together account for a large share of the globally traded supply.
The growth is elsewhere
India nearly doubled its output, from 49.9 to 113.3 million tonnes. Australia and Pakistan both grew by more than 120 per cent. These are countries where domestic demand rose steeply, and where growing more wheat was the direct answer.
That is the honest summary of this chart: wheat production has not stagnated globally, it has relocated. It moved from countries where farmers had more profitable alternatives to countries where they did not, and to one country — Russia — that turned it into an export industry and gained real leverage from doing so.
A caution on reading any of it
Production figures say nothing about quality, and wheat is not one commodity. Hard high-protein wheat for bread, soft wheat for biscuits and durum for pasta trade in effectively separate markets at different prices. A country can be large in tonnage and marginal in the specific grade a given buyer needs. Tonnes are the easiest thing to count, which is not the same as the most useful thing to know.