Bloomberg BusinessWeek piece.
Russia may supplant the US as top wheat exporter in less than a decade, we are told.
First thing to remember: Russia exports wheat like it exports oil, meaning not so much use at home so more to send overseas. It also focuses on wheat in a way that we don’t. Our overall dominance in ag exports isn’t, therefore, in question.
Still, the uptick in production over the past decade inside Russia is definitely impressive. At the turn of the century, we’re producing more than twice as much as Russia is, but now they’ve basically pulled even (understanding that we’re a bit less into wheat as other crops have increased their shares).
But this is why I said, among other reasons, why I saw no reason to boot Russia into rogue regime status over just Georgia: when you look at the four major export regions for grains, there’s King Kong North America, the ABCs of South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile), Australia-NZ, and the Slavic heartland region that encompasses European Russia, Ukraine and the Kazakh steppe. Here we’re talking about the only prime arable land in the world that’s not being used to its potential, either in total acreage under plow or per acre yields. So when you speak of feeding the future, these guys are definitely part of the mix, especially when you consider that this region lies above the 35th parallel—or above the latitudes where global warming’s impact (in terms of long droughts) will make growing crops that much harder in coming decades.