ABSTRACT
Among the world’s cereal crops, maize ranks second to wheat in production, with milled rice third. Worldwide, maize is the most widely grown cereal crop. Seventy countries, including 53 developing countries, plant maize on more than 100,000 hectares. Five hundred million tons of maize is produced annually on 130 million hectares. The highest per capita maize utilization rates occur in countries where most of the grain is fed to animals or where maize is the preferred food staple. The sophistication of the maize economy is reflected in the industrial utilization data. Animal feed accounts for 70 percent or more of total maize utilization in industrialized economies, including Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and in certain middle-income and newly industrialized nations of the Third World. In 1950 world maize trade stood at about 16 million tons. In the 1990s, the volume of maize traded has fluctuated between 60 and 70 million tons.
