International Benchmarks for Wheat Production

Examining the competitiveness of wheat production in different regions of the world is often difficult due to lack of comparable data and agreement regarding what needs to be measured.

To be useful, international data needs to be expressed in common production units and converted to a common currency. Also, production and cost measures need to be consistently defined across production regions or farms.

This paper examines the competitiveness of wheat production for important international wheat production regions using 2018 to 2022 data from the agri benchmark network. An earlier paper examined international benchmarks for the 2015 to 2019 period (Langemeier, 2021). The agri benchmark network collects data on beef, cash crops, dairy, pigs and poultry, horticulture, and organic products. There are 20 countries with corn, soybean, and/or wheat data for 2022 represented in the cash crop network. The agri benchmark concept of typical farms was developed to understand and compare current farm production systems around the world. Participant countries follow a standard procedure to create typical farms that are representative of national farm output shares, and categorized by production system or combination of enterprises and structural features. Costs and revenues are converted to U.S. dollars so that comparisons can be readily made. Data from ten typical farms with wheat enterprise data from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, and United States were used in this paper. It is important to note that wheat enterprise data is collected from other countries. These seven countries were selected to simplify the illustration and discussion.

The farm and country abbreviations used in this paper are listed in Table 1. All of the farms had data for each year from 2018 to 2022. While the farms may produce a variety of crops, this paper only considers wheat production. Typical farms used in the agri benchmark network are defined using country initials and hectares on the farm. To fully understand the relative importance of the wheat enterprise on each typical farm, it is useful to note all of the crops produced. The typical farm in Argentina produced corn, sweet corn, soybeans, sunflowers, and winter wheat in 2022. Wheat was produced on approximately 14 percent of the typical farm’s acreage during the five-year period. The typical farm in Australia produced malting barley, winter rapeseed, and summer wheat in 2022.

Wheat was produced on approximately 41 percent of the typical farm’s acreage. The Canadian farm in the Red River Valley produced corn, summer rapeseed, soybeans, and summer wheat in 2022 with wheat representing 20 percent of the farm’s acreage during the five-year period. The typical farm in Saskatoon produced summer rapeseed, peas, and summer wheat in 2022 with wheat representing approximately 42 percent of the farm’s acreage during the five-year period. The German farm produced winter barley, corn silage, winter rapeseed, and winter wheat in 2022. During the five-year period, wheat was planted on 51 percent of the typical farm’s acreage. The farm in Poland produced summer and winter barley, corn, winter rye, winter rapeseed, beans, sugar beets, and winter wheat in 2022 with wheat representing 46 percent of the farm’s acreage during the five-year period. The smaller farm in the Ukraine produced corn, soybeans, sunflowers, and winter wheat with wheat representing approximately 16 percent of the typical farm’s acreage during the five-year period.

Crops produced on the larger farm in the Ukraine in 2022 included winter rapeseed, sunflowers, and winter wheat. Wheat was produced on approximately 14 percent of the typical farm’s acreage during the five-year period. There are three U.S. farms with wheat in the network. The typical farms in North Dakota and Kansas are represented in this study. The typical farm in North Dakota produced corn, soybeans, and summer wheat in 2022. Wheat was produced on approximately 17 percent of the typical farm’s acreage during the five-year period. The typical farm in Kansas produced corn and winter wheat. Wheat was produced on approximately 36 percent of the typical farm’s acreage during the five-year period.

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