U.S. Share Of World Wheat Exports Continues To Decline

Mar 05, 2015

The United States is one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat—second only to the European Union and ahead of the world’s other major exporters including Canada, Australia and Russia—but its share of global wheat exports has trended lower over several decades and is expected to continue to decline over the next 10 years.

While US wheat exports are expected to trend modestly higher from 2015 through 2024, exports from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan could account for nearly half of the projected increase in world wheat trade, notwithstanding the weather-related production fluctuations that are common in this region. Growth in wheat imports is concentrated in developing countries where income and population gains drive increases in demand, including regions of West Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt and other parts of North Africa and the Middle East, Indonesia and Pakistan.

In many of these markets, Black Sea and EU exporters maintain a cost advantage over the United States reflecting transportation distance, as well as the fact that U.S. wheat exports are almost exclusively for high-value food markets while much of the wheat imported by developing countries is for lower value uses including livestock feed. Nevertheless, the United States will remain one of the world’s leading suppliers of high-quality wheat, with exports projected to rise slowly during the coming decade, even as its share of global exports falls from 17.8 percent in 2015/16 to 16.1 percent in 2024/25.

Source:usda.gov

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.