Stats Can: Corn for grain: the world’s top cereal crop

Stats Can: Corn: Canada's third most valuable crop

By Marie-Andrée Hamel and Erik Dorff 2014-03-18

Corn for grain: the world’s top cereal crop

When it comes to cereal crop production around the world, corn is king. This may come as a surprise to many. Anyone who has ever seen the endless seas of golden wheat on the Canadian Prairies might think that this lynchpin of Canadian agriculture is the number one cereal crop.

The same might be thought of rice and the landscape of paddies stretching as far as the eye can see across Asia. But instead, the most produced cereal crop worldwide is actually corn (also known as maize), a cereal native to the Americas. It outstrips both rice and wheat in terms of global production (Table 1).

Table 1
World and Canadian production of major grains and oilseeds, 2011
Table summary
This table displays the results of World and Canadian production of major grains and oilseeds. The information is grouped by Commodity (appearing as row headers), World, Canada, Share of total and World position, calculated using Metric tonnes, Percent and Rank units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Commodity	World	Canada	Share of total	World position
Commodity	metric tonnes		percent	rank
Maize	885,289,935	10,688,700	1.2	11
Rice, paddy	722,559,584	...	...	...
Wheat	701,395,334	25,261,400	3.6	7
Soybeans	262,037,569	4,246,300	1.6	7
Barley	133,049,075	7,755,700	5.8	7
Canola	62,546,641	14,164,500	22.6	1
Sorghum	58,583,460	...	...	...
Millet	27,226,548	...	...	...
Oats	22,676,189	2,997,100	13.2	2
Rye	13,162,017	194,700	1.5	10
... not applicable Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Maize or corn for grain^Note1 is the number one cereal crop worldwide with 885.3 million tonnes produced in 2011 according to the FAO^Note2. The top producer was the United States with 313.9 million tonnes or 35.5% of global production. The U.S. was followed by China which produced 192.8 million tonnes (21.8% of world production). Canada placed 11th in world production of corn with 10.7 million tonnes of grain corn produced in 2011 (Table 2).

Table 2
Top grain corn producing nations, 2011
Table summary
This table displays the results of Top grain corn producing nations. The information is grouped by Rank (appearing as row headers), Country, Production and Share of world production, calculated using Metric tonnes and Percent units of measure (appearing as column headers).
Rank	Country	Production	Share of world production
Rank	Country	metric tonnes	percent
	World	885,289,935	100.0
1	United States of America	313,948,610	35.5
2	China, mainland	192,781,000	21.8
3	Brazil	55,660,415	6.3
4	Argentina	23,799,830	2.7
5	Ukraine	22,837,900	2.6
6	India	21,760,000	2.5
7	Mexico	17,635,417	2.0
8	Indonesia	17,629,033	2.0
9	France	15,913,300	1.8
10	Romania	11,717,591	1.3
11	Canada	10,688,700	1.2
12	South Africa	10,360,000	1.2
13	Italy	9,752,592	1.1
14	Nigeria	9,180,270	1.0
15	Hungary	7,992,000	0.9
16	Philippines	6,971,221	0.8
17	Russian Federation	6,962,440	0.8
18	Egypt	6,876,473	0.8
19	Serbia	6,479,564	0.7
20	Ethiopia	6,069,413	0.7
Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, data accessed February 13, 2014.

In Canada, over 32,300 farms reported planting 1.63 million hectares of corn (corn for grain, corn for silage and sweet corn) according to the 2011 Census of Agriculture. The value of farm cash receipts for grain corn alone reached $2.08 billion in 2011, ranking it as the third most valuable crop in Canada, after canola and wheat.^Note3