FAO data (via OWID) for “Wheat production” (top 30 sovereign and dependent territory rows by most recent year). Values in million tonnes (two decimals). Aggregates excluded.
Chart ready. Press play to start.
How to use this chart
Play/Pause starts and stops the year-by-year animation, the year slider jumps to any year, and the speed selector (0.5×, 1×, 2×) changes playback speed. Each year shows the top 12 entries out of the 30 held in the dataset.
About this ranking
About this metric. “Wheat Production by Country (Time Series)” reformats data published by Our World in Data (mostly re-published World Bank / UN public statistics) (OWID Grapher slug “wheat-production”). Values are expressed in million tonnes.
What to watch. The United States led in 1961; China and India rose with their populations, and Russia rebuilt itself into a wheat power after the Soviet collapse. Remember production isn’t export power — Russia and Ukraine matter to bread prices far beyond their output ranks.
Caveats. Wheat totals mix bread, durum and feed varieties with very different uses, and drought years swing semi-arid producers such as Australia and Kazakhstan by double-digit percentages. Production rank also says little about who feeds import-dependent regions.
Trends in the data
The United States trajectory is the most instructive in this race. First in 1961 at 33.54 million tonnes, it nearly doubled to a peak of 65.22 million in 1993, then declined to 60.06 million in 2010 and 53.65 million in 2024. America did not abandon wheat; acreage shifted to more profitable maize and soybeans. Russia moved in the opposite direction: 43.55 million tonnes in 1993, still flat at 41.51 million in 2010, then almost doubling to 82.59 million by 2024. The re-emergence of Russia as an export-led wheat power after the post-Soviet disruption is compressed into these fifteen years.
By growth rate the leading roles belong elsewhere. Brazil went from just 0.54 million tonnes in 1961 to 7.63 million, a 14× increase that lifted it from 22nd to 16th — varietal breeding in its temperate south pushing back on the assumption that wheat cannot be grown in the tropics. The rise of Pakistan (12th → 6th) and Egypt (20th → 14th) is a record of national efforts to keep food production abreast of population growth. Italy, fifth in the world in 1961 at 8.3 million tonnes, has fallen to 19th at 6.21 million — that the country of pasta is a wheat importer is a facet of food trade that production rankings alone do not show.
Wheat is highly weather-sensitive, and single-year values carry large swings. France falling from 38.21 million tonnes in 2010 to 26.61 million in 2024 is a case in point, better read as a record of a poor harvest than as long-run decline. Follow the slope over five to ten years rather than one year’s rank.
China also grew almost tenfold, from 14.25 million tonnes in 1961 to 140.1 million in 2024, but most of that goes to domestic consumption and its presence in export markets is far smaller than its production rank suggests. The world’s tables are supplied not by the largest producer but by the countries with a surplus to spare — a twist this indicator shares with cereal production and rice production. It is also why Russia and Ukraine matter geopolitically: neither leads on output, but both have large exportable surpluses that underpin food supply across the Middle East and North Africa.
Trivia quiz
What is wheat sown in autumn and harvested in early summer called?
Winter wheat, as opposed to spring wheat. Most of the world's wheat is winter wheat. (Source)
What is the fertile black soil of the great grain belts of Ukraine and southern Russia called?
Chernozem (black earth), one of the world's most fertile soils, well suited to wheat. (Source)
Which wheat protein gives bread and noodles their elastic, chewy texture?
Gluten, the characteristic protein of wheat formed when flour is mixed with water. (Source)