Food trade globe
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Flows on the globe for the selected product, given the layers, by value
Key points
World exports of major food products in 2024 totaled about $1 tn: meat, fish and seafood — $308 bn, oilseeds and vegetable oils — $291 bn, coffee, tea, cocoa and sugar — $236 bn, grain — $159 bn. The largest grain exporter is the United States (15%), followed by India, Ukraine, Argentina and Russia (7–8% each). Brazil leads in oilseeds (16%), and the largest single flow on the globe is Brazilian soybeans and oils to China ($32 bn). China buys almost a quarter of world imports of oilseeds and oils.
Seaborne food shipments total about $530 bn a year. The load is spread across several chokepoints: the Cape of Good Hope (~$90 bn), Gibraltar (~$80 bn), the Suez Canal (~$79 bn), Bab-el-Mandeb (~$71 bn) and the Strait of Malacca (~$61 bn). For some countries the dependence is critical: Iraq, Iran and Kuwait receive 74–99% of their grain imports through the Strait of Hormuz, and 56–64% of the grain exports of Russia, Ukraine and Romania pass through the Turkish Straits; about $10 bn of these exports have no sea alternative.
Importance of straits
Click “Close strait” in the list below or select a strait on the globe. The model shows how much trade passes through it and which countries depend on it most: importers are highlighted in red, exporters in orange. The more saturated the color, the larger the share of the country’s trade that passes through the strait.
Straits and canals
Estimated value of seaborne shipments through each strait in the selected layer. The “Close strait” button shows whose trade depends on it.
Click a flow, country, strait or hub on the globe
About the data
Data. Source: BACI (CEPII), a reconciled database of bilateral trade based on UN Comtrade, 2024 (accessed via OEC). Layers: “Grain” — HS chapter 10 (wheat, maize, rice, barley, etc.); “Oilseeds and oils” — chapters 12 (soybeans, rapeseed, sunflower and other oilseeds, fodder) and 15 (vegetable and animal fats and oils, including palm oil); “Meat and fish” — chapters 02 and 03; “Coffee, cocoa, sugar” — chapters 09 (coffee, tea, spices), 17 (sugar and sugar confectionery) and 18 (cocoa and cocoa preparations). Fertilizers and wood are shown in separate globes.
What is shown. The globe shows the 70 largest sea flows, the 40 largest air flows (dashed lines with planes) and the 25 largest overland flows. Strait estimates cover all flows from $40 m (from $25 m for coffee, cocoa and sugar) — about 90% of world trade in each layer. When a strait is closed, country lists include countries with trade in the layer of at least 0.1% of the world total (and at least $50 m).
Mode of transport. Trade between neighboring countries (within Europe and North America, China with its neighbors including Central Asia, within Southeast Asia, etc.) is treated as overland. For other flows, the sea share is taken from Eurostat statistics on EU trade with distant countries for 2024: virtually all grain is carried by sea (99.6%), as are about 98% of coffee, cocoa and sugar, about 93% of oilseeds and oils and about 93% of meat and fish (fresh fish and seafood often travel by air). Air shipments do not depend on straits.
Routes and importance of straits. A route is the shortest path between the countries’ main ports over the network of sea lanes. A strait’s importance for a country is the share of its shipments through the strait in its total imports or exports of the product group. When a strait is closed, the model looks for a detour and estimates how much longer it is (at an average vessel speed of 14 knots); if there is no detour, the shipment is considered cut off.
Limitations. This is a computational model, not vessel-tracking data. Routes run between the countries’ main ports, not between grain or fish terminals. Re-exports via the Netherlands and Belgium (cocoa, oils, meat) are shown as separate flows.
WhiteIndex. Food Trade Globe (October 2026). Data: BACI (CEPII) based on UN Comtrade, 2024; Eurostat.
All sources
BACI (CEPII) based on UN Comtrade, 2024
This text was translated automatically from Russian. Figures, years, names and sources are as in the original.
Food exports in 2024: sea and air routes, the role of straits in world trade