M. Shahbandeh
Research expert covering agriculture & FMCG
Wheat in the U.S. - statistics & facts
Wheat is one of the oldest types of cereal grass in the world and is produced in almost every single American state. The many varieties of this cereal grain are used to make numerous types of food, such as bread, pasta, cake, and flour. The United States produced almost 50 million metric tons of wheat during 2023/20224 putting the country in fifth place in terms of global wheat production for that period. Within the same period, the United States was also the fifth-largest principal exporter of wheat, flour and wheat products. Russia and the European Union were the largest exporters of wheat that year.
U.S. wheat industry
In the United States, about 49.6 million acres of wheat were planted, and about 37 million acres were harvested in 2023. Compared to the past two decades, total U.S. wheat area plantation and harvest were both at their lowest in 2020 and increased slightly in 2021. Production was, however, lower in 2021 and 2022: close to 1.65 billion bushels’ worth of wheat were produced in the United States in those years. In 2023, about 1.81 billion bushels of wheat were produced in the United States. A bushel is a unit of volume equal to eight dry gallons and was mainly used for agricultural purposes.Leading producers
In 2023, the leading wheat-producing U.S. state was North Dakota, which cultivated an estimated 307 million bushels of wheat. In that year, Kansas was the second leading producer and had a wheat production of over 200 million bushels.U.S. wheat trade
A great deal of the wheat produced in the United States is exported to other countries around the globe: during 2022/2023, the country exported over 759 million bushels worth of wheat, and imported about 122 million bushels of wheat in that time period.
