World wheat facts and trends. Report two: An analysis of rapidly rising Third World consumption and imports of wheat
1983
The world wheat economy has dramatically changed over the last three decades. In the period immediately following World War II, wheat trade was dominated by the developed market economics. The USA, Canada and Australia were exporting wheat destined primarily for Western Europe and Japan. Throughout the 1960s and particularly the 1970s, developing countries of the world, as well as Eastern Europe and the USSR (to a lesser extent), imported increasingly large amounts of wheat. During this same period Western Europe emerged as a net exporter of wheat. The developing countries' share of world wheat imports rose from one-fourth of the total in 1955 to two-thirds in 1982. Today, the consumption of wheat has essentially levelled off in most developed nations, while consumption in the developing world continues to rapidly increase. For some developing countries, rapid increases in wheat consumption have been made possible by rapid gains in wheat yields and domestic production. However, many developing countries have increasingly turned to wheat imports to meet domestic demand, and appear destined to rely on imports in the future. Moreover, some developing countries in the tropics have responded to the costs of increased wheat imports by establishing wheat research and production programs.
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