Buckwheat Production by Country 2024

The term "buckwheat" is a common name for several flowering plants in the Fagopyrum genus of flowering plants in the knotweed family. As a food source, it most often refers to F. esculentum, also known as common buckwheat. Despite the name, buckwheat isn't closely related to wheat, nor is it even a cereal. However, it is known as a pseudocereal because its culinary uses are the same as true cereals due to its high starch content. Buckwheat originates from China, although this is no longer its center of production.

History

Buckwheat is native to south-central China and Tibet, but it's now cultivated commercially in similar climates throughout the world, including those in Africa, the Americas and Eurasia. It was first cultivated in Southeast Asia about 8,000 years ago, beginning with the western Yunnan region of China and spreading to Central Asia and Tibet. The cultivation of buckwheat was then adopted in the Middle East and reached Europe by the 15th century.

Culinary Uses

Today, buckwheat groats are most commonly eaten in Western Asia and Eastern Europe in the form of a porridge, where it's considered a peasant dish. The groats are roasted and cooked into broth with a texture similar to that of bulgur and rice. This dish is commonly known as kasha in Eastern Europe, where immigrants took buckwheat to America by the 19th century. Kasha is the most common way of eating buckwheat in modern times, especially in eastern European countries like Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia and Ukraine. In addition to eating kasha as a porridge, it's often mixed with pasta or used as a filling for stuffed cabbage rolls, blintzes and knishes.

Pancakes made from buckwheat flour light and foamy, with an earthy, mushroom-like flavor. Buckwheat pancakes are eaten in many countries, where they're known by various local names. For example, they're called ployes in Acadia, boûketes in the Wallonia region of Belgium. galettes bretonnes in France, kuttu ki puri in India, kachhyamba in Nepal, poffertjes in the Netherlands and blini in Russia. Buckwheat pancakes were also popular among American pioneers, as they traveled west across North America.

Production

The world's total production of buckwheat was about 1.9 million metric tons in 2021, with Russia producing about half and China producing over a fourth. Together, these two countries accounted for over three-fourths of the world's production of buckwheat.