Did the 2018 drought in Europe result in 2019 worldwide grain crop not meeting demand? An essay on T-Online.de makes the following claim: > Schon ein einziger Dürresommer in Europa 2018 führte dazu, dass die Getreideernte in diesem Jahr weltweit den Bedarf nicht mehr deckt (noch gibt es aber Reserven). My translation: > Even a single drought summer in Europe 2018 resulted in this year's worldwide grain crop no longer meeting demand (there are still reserves though). I do not actually doubt that claim as such, but is there hard data publicly available to back it up?

The Food and Agricultre Organization of the United Nations (FAO) track cereal production (which is an interchangeable term for grain production).

In their November 2019 Cereal Suppy and Demand Brief they list the production figures for the past three years, and estimates for this year.

![World Cereal Market](

The footnote #1 explains "Production data refer to the calendar year of the first year shown."

So, the estimated production of cereal in calendar year 2018 was 2.6573 billion tonnes. This is a small drop over the 2016 and 2017 but an increase over 2015.

"Demand" is difficult to measure; the FAO measure utilization. (I would normally include their definition here, but it isn't useful.)

**At an estimated 2.6888 billion tonnes in 2018/2019, utilization slightly outweighs estimated production by 1.1%.**

If we accept "demand" refers to utilization, the claim is true.

(I didn't try to work out whether the drought was a cause or just a correlation.)