FAO's latest forecast for 2019 world cereal production is pegged at an all-time high of 2.7 billion tonnes, up some 0.4 percent from the November figure and now almost 57 million tonnes (2.1 percent) above the reduced outturn in 2018. The month-on-month increase primarily reflects an upward revision of the
world coarse grains production forecast, associated with higher-than-previously predicted yields in China (Mainland), the Russian Federation and Ukraine.

In 1996, World cereral production was 1.87 billion tonnes (including rice in milled equivalent), up 23 million tonnes from the end 1996 forecast and more than 8 percent above 1995's reduced level. The ratio of end-of-season stocks to forecast consumption in 1997/98, although nearly reaching 16 percent, would still be below the 17 to 18 percent range that FAO considers the minimum necessary to safeguard world food security, according to the report from FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS).