8 Countries that Produce the Most Grain in the World

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If you’re wondering which countries feed the most people, take a look at this list of 8 countries that produce the most grain in the world. Although countries on this list below produce high quantities of all types of grain, there’s still close to 800 million people living with less food required to lead healthy lives according to UN World Food Programme’s Hunger Statistics. That’s 1 in 9 people on the planet. Still, things would have been much worse if it weren’t for world’s largest grain producers. Similar can be said for the countries that produce the most fish in the world. These countries too do their fair share of global hunger relieving. Sadly, it’s still far from enough.

8 Countries that Produce the Most Grain in the World

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Before we begin, let’s first define grain. When mentioning grain, most people first think of wheat. While wheat certainly qualifies as a type of grain, it’s far from only one. Small, hard, dry seeds can be divided into cereals and legumes – with us being mostly interested in former. Cereals themselves are further divided into warm and cool-season cereals, but they all belong to the grass (Poaceae) family. Warm-season cereals include the likes of maize (corn) and millet, while cool-season cereals are generally more widespread and include grains such as already mentioned wheat, barley, rice, rye, oats, etc. Of course, we can’t simply forget all legumes. Soybeans, for instance, play an important role in global grain production and consumption diagrams.

In order to compile our list of 8 countries that produce the most grain in the world, we have decided to gather the data from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Statistics Division or simply FAOSTAT. Furthermore, we have decided to include a few types of grain as one or two wouldn’t give us a clear picture. The most common types of grain are those produced the most. By looking at grain production curves, we have singled out the following types of grain that are being produced in large quantities: wheat, maize, rice, soybeans and barley. We have gathered the data for all five mentioned grain types and calculated totals for each country producing these commodities. We know that most countries don’t produce all types of mentioned grain, but we only thought it would fair to include the grain types with largest production outputs. For instance, you’ll be hard-pressed to find rice on European or North American fields or barley in Asia, but they will effectively cancel each other out anyway. All data has been gathered for the year 2013 which is the last available year for these five types of grains, and all values are showcased in metric tonnes. Let’s take a look at countries that produce the most grain in the world now.

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