CIMMYT Report on wheat improvement 1984

Abstract

World wheat production in 1984 reached about 520 million metric tons (MT), exceeding the previous year's record. Among developed nations, the countries of Western and Eastern Europe experienced the greatest increases; extremely favorable growing conditions helped raise production by 24 MT over 1983. Several Western European countries greatly augmented their wheat production by obtaining higher yields. In North America, increases were limited by several factors, including agricultural land set-aside programs in the USA. drought in the Canadian prairies, and reductions in the amount of land planted to winter wheat in the USA. Nevertheless, total wheat production has been stable over the past few years. Among developing nations, wheat production has repeatedly reached record levels, grOWing by almost 80 MT during the past decade. Exceptional yield increases realized by the major Asian wheat-growing nations have contributed greatly to achieving those higher levels of production. During the past four years, China improved production by more than 30 MT, to become the leading wheat-producing country in the world. India and Bangladesh have also experienced steady gains. Unfortunately, the gains achieved by Asia's developing nations did not occur in the rest of the Third World. In East Africa, persistent drought continued to destroy wheat crops; Kenya's harvest was less than half the size of previous years' crops, and Ethiopian wheat production was reduced by 25% to 700,000 t. Production in the Middle East and North Africa has risen little in the past few years. However, Saudi Arabia harvested over 1.3 MT of wheat in 1984, compared with less than 200,000 t three years before. As in the Middle East, wheat production in Latin America was largely unchanged. Production remained static in Argentina and the Andean region, and Brazil's harvest was nearly 1 MT lower than 1979's record level. In 1984, Chile and Uruguay were two exceptions to this situation; total production in Chile rose considerably, to nearly 1 MT, and Uruguay's harvest was above average. In the near future, world wheat supplies should continue to rise, given favorable weather conditions and relatively stable prices for inputs. It is clear that several countries, including the USSR, have the potential to attain sizeable production increases by obtaining higher yields.