1-24 FB Importance of Wheat

 Approximately 25 percent of global agricultural land is utilized for wheat cultivation, making wheat the largest food crop worldwide in terms of area. Wheat is the second most-produced cereal crop after corn with more than 650 million tons produced every year. Wheat productivity is increasing at less than 1 percent annually, while the annual productivity increase required only to meet population growth is approximately double that percentage. Main wheat producing regions are Australia, the Black Sea Region, China, the European Union, India and North America.

World demand for wheat is one reason that Bayer CropScience and the University of Nebraska have signed an agreement to improve wheat breeding and generate new wheat varieties.

Here’s Spokesperson Peter Peerbolte with some amazing statistics: “What we’re thinking about in our long term strategy is how are we going to feed nine billion people in the year 2050 and so we have 6.5 billion today but by 2050 we’re gonna have 9 billion people.”

 As always, the U.S. and it’s agricultural producers are selflessly thinking about the rest of the world.