page_title: Cereal
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Cereal / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of wheat production (average percentage of land used for its production times average yield in each grid cell) across the world compiled by the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment with data from: Monfreda, C., N. Ramankutty, and J.A. Foley. 2008. Farming the planet: 2. Geographic distribution of crop areas, yields, physiological types, and net primary production in the year 2000. Global Biogeochemical Cycles 22: GB1022
context_page_description: A cereal is any grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain, composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran. The term may also refer to the resulting grain itself. Cereal grain crops are grown in greater quantities and provide more food energy worldwide than any other type of crop and are therefore staple crops. Edible grains from other plant families, such as buckwheat, quinoa and chia, are referred to as pseudocereals.
  In their natural, unprocessed, whole grain form, cereals are a rich source of vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats, oils, and protein. When processed by the removal of the bran, and germ, the remaining endosperm is mostly carbohydrate. In some developing countries, grain in the form of rice, wheat, millet, or maize constitutes a majority of daily sustenance. In developed countries, cereal consumption is moderate and varied but still substantial.
  The word cereal is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of harvest and agriculture.
context_section_description: The following table shows the annual production of cereals in 1961, 1980, 2000, 2010, and 2018 ranked by 2018 production.
  Maize, wheat, and rice together accounted for 89% of all cereal production worldwide in 2012, and 43% of all food calories in 2009, while the production of oats and triticale have drastically fallen from their 1960s levels.
  Other cereals worthy of notice, but not included in FAO statistics, include:
  Teff, an ancient grain that is a staple in Ethiopia. It is high in fiber and protein. Its flour is often used to make injera. It can also be eaten as a warm breakfast cereal similar to farina with a chocolate or nutty flavor. Its flour and whole grain products can usually be found in natural foods stores.
  Wild rice, grown in small amounts in North America.
  Several other species of wheat have also been domesticated, some very early in the history of agriculture:
  Spelt, a close relative of common wheat.
  Einkorn, a wheat species with a single grain.
  Emmer, one of the first crops domesticated in the Fertile Crescent.
  Durum, the only tetraploid species of wheat currently cultivated, used to make semolina.
  Kamut, an ancient relative of durum with an unknown history.
  In 2013 global cereal production reached a record 2,521 million tonnes. A slight dip to 2,498 million tonnes was forecasted for 2014 by the FAO in July 2014.
caption: A map of worldwide wheat production.
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