Cow’s milk tops the list of most cultivated global agricultural products
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Apart from providing security and health to the population, agriculture is an essential factor in economic growth, accounting for 4.3% of the global GDP. It is also an integral component of international trade, as much of the staple foods such as sugar, soybeans, and rice are produced and exported worldwide.
But the growth of the agricultural sectors has been hitting many roadblocks in recent years, elevated by climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the Ukraine-Russia war.
The war in Ukraine has disturbed the world food market, as Ukraine and Russia are among the largest food producers in the world, with Ukraine being the largest producer of sunflower seeds (a crucial agricultural commodity in food production factories). These factors created uncertainty among people about the future of our food production.
To shed some light on where our food comes from and which countries trade most of it, University of Potomac researched the newest data on agricultural production.
In the last two decades, the production of crops worldwide increased by over 53%, reaching a record high of 9.8 billion tons in 2020. While a plethora of agricultural commodities are produced worldwide, in 2019, only four crops account for half of the world’s agricultural production. Sugar cane tops the list with 1.9 billion tons, accounting for 21% of the total output. It is followed by corn with 1.1 billion tons (12%) and rice and wheat with 0.8 billion tons (8%) each.
Milk is the most commonly cultivated agricultural commodities in the world. Today, 37 countries have cow’s milk as their top agricultural product. Germany is one of the biggest milk producers, with over 33 million tons of milk produced every year. In monetary terms, this adds to 12.9 billion US dollars.
New Zealand is another big cow’s milk producer, with 21.9 million tons of milk produced every year, reaching a market value of $7.8 billion.
To read the full report, please follow this link.