# Where do oats come from?

Source: Commodity Origins, https://commodityorigins.com/commodities/oats/ — data JSON: https://commodityorigins.com/data/commodities/oats.json — license CC BY 4.0 (upstream data keeps its license; see Sources below).

Oats come mainly from Canada, which produced 3.4 million tonnes in 2024, 15% of the world's 22.4 million tonnes (FAOSTAT). Russia (13%), Poland (7.2%) and Australia (5.9%) follow; the top five together supply 47%. The biggest exporter of oats (HS 1004) is Canada (41% of world export value in 2024, CEPII BACI). The benchmark price, Oats, first-position futures, United States, was $3.44/bu in July 2026, down 1% from a year earlier (IMF PCPS). Oats tolerate cool, wet, acid ground that wheat dislikes, so they persist on the northern and western margins of the grain belt in Canada, the Nordic countries, Poland and the north of Britain, where they are often the only cereal that reliably ripens.

*A cool-climate cereal eaten as flakes and porridge and fed to horses and livestock.* Also called: oat, oat grain, milling oats, feed oats.

## Where do oats come from?

| Rank | Country | Production 2024 (tonnes) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canada | 3.4 million | 15% |
| 2 | Russia | 3 million | 13% |
| 3 | Poland | 1.6 million | 7.2% |
| 4 | Australia | 1.3 million | 5.9% |
| 5 | Finland | 1.2 million | 5.4% |
| 6 | Spain | 1.2 million | 5.2% |
| 7 | Brazil | 1.1 million | 4.9% |
| 8 | United Kingdom | 986,000 | 4.4% |
| 9 | United States | 984,010 | 4.4% |
| 10 | Germany | 696,800 | 3.1% |
| | Rest of world | 0 | 31% |
| | World | 22.4 million | 100% |

Source: FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL), 2024.

In 2024 Canada produced 3.4 million tonnes of oats, 15% of the world's 22.4 million tonnes (FAOSTAT). Russia followed with 13%, then Poland (7.2%), Australia (5.9%) and Finland (5.4%). The top five account for 47% and 76 countries reported a crop, with 31% from outside the top ten.

Oats are a small crop by the standards of this site. World output is a fraction of wheat or corn, and it has been declining for a century in absolute terms, because the horse that oats mainly fed was replaced by the tractor. What has kept the crop alive is human food demand, which has grown as oats acquired a health reputation, and more recently oat drink, which has become a genuinely significant new demand stream.

The geography is a story of climatic margins. Oats need moisture and tolerate cool summers and acid soils, so they do well in Canada's prairie fringe, in Finland, Sweden and Poland, in Russia, and in the wetter parts of Britain and Ireland. They are grown in Australia and Argentina too, often as much for grazing and hay as for grain. Where the climate suits wheat or corn better, oats are grown as a break crop in a rotation rather than for their own returns.

World output changed -2% over the ten years to 2024 and +21% on the previous year.

## Who exports and imports oats?

### Exporters of oats (HS 1004), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canada | $452.9 million | 41% |
| 2 | Finland | $135.6 million | 12% |
| 3 | Australia | $119.2 million | 11% |
| 4 | Russia | $54.4 million | 4.9% |
| 5 | Sweden | $48.4 million | 4.4% |
| 6 | Poland | $41.8 million | 3.8% |
| 7 | Estonia | $28.9 million | 2.6% |
| 8 | France | $21.9 million | 2% |
| 9 | Latvia | $21.7 million | 2% |
| 10 | United Kingdom | $19.4 million | 1.7% |
| 11 | Lithuania | $18.3 million | 1.6% |
| 12 | Ireland | $17.5 million | 1.6% |
| 13 | Czechia | $16.1 million | 1.4% |
| 14 | United States | $14.4 million | 1.3% |
| 15 | Germany | $12.8 million | 1.1% |

### Importers of oats (HS 1004), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | $336.7 million | 30% |
| 2 | Germany | $157.9 million | 14% |
| 3 | China | $148.8 million | 13% |
| 4 | Mexico | $59.1 million | 5.3% |
| 5 | Belgium | $53.3 million | 4.8% |
| 6 | Spain | $52.1 million | 4.7% |
| 7 | Netherlands | $35.1 million | 3.1% |
| 8 | Japan | $23.1 million | 2.1% |
| 9 | Denmark | $18.9 million | 1.7% |
| 10 | Switzerland | $17.9 million | 1.6% |
| 11 | Italy | $17.1 million | 1.5% |
| 12 | United Arab Emirates | $15.5 million | 1.4% |
| 13 | Norway | $14 million | 1.3% |
| 14 | Peru | $13.4 million | 1.2% |
| 15 | Latvia | $13.1 million | 1.2% |

### Exporters of rolled or flaked grains of oats (HS 110412), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canada | $207.2 million | 23% |
| 2 | Germany | $120.1 million | 13% |
| 3 | Chile | $87.8 million | 9.9% |
| 4 | United Kingdom | $69.5 million | 7.8% |
| 5 | Australia | $64.5 million | 7.2% |
| 6 | Latvia | $48.1 million | 5.4% |
| 7 | United States | $32.7 million | 3.7% |
| 8 | Finland | $29.9 million | 3.4% |
| 9 | Ireland | $20.9 million | 2.4% |
| 10 | Lithuania | $18.6 million | 2.1% |
| 11 | Spain | $17.1 million | 1.9% |
| 12 | Malaysia | $16.8 million | 1.9% |
| 13 | Guatemala | $16 million | 1.8% |
| 14 | Czechia | $15.6 million | 1.8% |
| 15 | Belgium | $15.2 million | 1.7% |

### Importers of rolled or flaked grains of oats (HS 110412), 2024

| Rank | Country | Value (US$) | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | $216.7 million | 24% |
| 2 | France | $38.6 million | 4.3% |
| 3 | Germany | $32.1 million | 3.6% |
| 4 | Netherlands | $30 million | 3.4% |
| 5 | Japan | $28 million | 3.2% |
| 6 | Spain | $24.7 million | 2.8% |
| 7 | Saudi Arabia | $22.7 million | 2.5% |
| 8 | Poland | $22.4 million | 2.5% |
| 9 | Italy | $19.6 million | 2.2% |
| 10 | Colombia | $17.8 million | 2% |
| 11 | Austria | $14.5 million | 1.6% |
| 12 | United Kingdom | $13.3 million | 1.5% |
| 13 | Malaysia | $13.1 million | 1.5% |
| 14 | Philippines | $13 million | 1.5% |
| 15 | Czechia | $12.2 million | 1.4% |

Source: CEPII BACI international trade database (HS22, V202601).

Canada was the largest exporter of oats (HS 1004) in 2024 with 41% of world export value, ahead of Finland (12%), on world trade of $1.1 billion (CEPII BACI). United States was the largest importer with 30%.

Only a modest share of the crop is traded internationally, because oats are bulky relative to their value and most producing countries consume what they grow. The trade that exists is dominated by one relationship: Canadian milling oats moving south into United States mills, which is a road and rail trade rather than a seaborne one. Nordic and Baltic oats supply the European milling and oat drink industry, and Australia exports both grain and hay into Asia and the Middle East.

The critical distinction in the trade is between milling and feed grades. Millers want plump, bright, low-moisture grain with a high groat percentage and no frost damage or staining. Grain that fails those tests is sold as feed at a substantially lower price, and in a wet harvest a large share of a crop can be downgraded overnight.

## What do oats cost?

- Oats, first-position futures, United States: $3.44/bu in July 2026; 12-month change -1%; 10-year change +61%; all-time high $7.42/bu in November 2021; real high (2024 US$) $8.34/bu in November 2021 (IMF PCPS).

Prices are monthly benchmark averages that lag the market; not investment advice.

### How they are priced

The series shown is Oats, first-position futures, United States, which was $3.44/bu in July 2026, down 1% from a year earlier (IMF PCPS). Read the unit carefully: this is dollars per **bushel**, not per tonne. A bushel of oats weighs thirty-two pounds, the lightest of the grain bushels, so a tonne is about 68.9 bushels. Multiplying the quoted price by roughly 68.9 gives an approximate dollar-per-tonne figure, and failing to do that conversion makes oats look absurdly cheap next to the per-tonne grains on this site. The nominal high was $7.42/bu in November 2021.

The quotation is the front-month futures price on the Chicago Board of Trade contract, which covers 5,000 bushels. That contract is thin: oats trade a fraction of the volume of corn or wheat, so the price can move sharply on modest orders and the futures market is a less reliable guide to physical value than it is for the major grains.

Physical oats are priced by grade at the elevator, with premiums for milling quality and discounts for test weight, moisture, foreign material and staining. Because the milling market is concentrated among a small number of processors, and because the crop is small, contracted acreage arranged before planting supplies a large share of milling demand, and the spot market handles the remainder.

## What moves the price of oats?

### Acreage competition

Oats compete for land with wheat, canola and barley, and they usually lose. Farmers plant them when relative prices favor them or when a rotation needs a break crop, so oat acreage is the residual after other decisions, which makes supply unusually responsive to the prices of other crops rather than to its own.

### Harvest weather and grade

A wet harvest stains and sprouts the grain and pushes it out of milling grade into feed, which can shift a large share of a crop between two very different price levels without changing total production at all. Milling premiums therefore widen sharply in a poor harvest.

### Oat drink demand

Plant-based milk alternatives have created a genuinely new industrial demand for milling-quality oats, concentrated in northern Europe and North America. This has raised the floor under milling demand and prompted contracted acreage arrangements that did not previously exist.

### Canadian production and logistics

One country supplies most of the traded milling crop, and it moves by rail to United States mills. Rail capacity, which competes with canola, wheat and potash for the same cars, can constrain deliveries and widen basis even when the crop is adequate.

### Feed substitution

Feed oats compete directly with barley and corn in livestock rations, so when corn is cheap the feed oat price is capped. That link puts a floor under the whole market in a good harvest, because downgraded milling oats must clear into feed.

### Human health positioning

Beta-glucan soluble fiber and the health claims permitted around it have supported food demand for decades. Regulatory approval of those claims in different markets has been a durable if slow-moving driver of consumption.

## How are oats produced?

Oats are sown in spring in most producing regions and harvested in late summer, though winter oats are grown in milder climates. They are relatively undemanding of fertility and are commonly used as a break crop to interrupt disease cycles in wheat and barley rotations, which is part of their agronomic value beyond the grain they produce.

The harvested grain consists of a groat, the edible kernel, inside a fibrous hull that is a much larger share of the grain than in wheat. The first milling step is therefore dehulling, done by throwing the grain against a ring at high speed so the hull splits. Groat yield, typically around two-thirds by weight, is the key quality measure and the reason plump grain commands a premium.

Groats are then kiln-dried and heat-treated, which is essential rather than cosmetic: oats contain a lipase enzyme that would otherwise turn the oil in the groat rancid within weeks. The heat treatment deactivates it and gives oatmeal its characteristic nutty flavour. Stabilised groats are then cut into steel-cut oats, rolled into flakes of varying thickness, or ground into flour.

Oat drink is made by mixing oat flour or flakes with water and treating the slurry with enzymes that break the starch into shorter sugars, producing natural sweetness and a texture that does not separate. The mixture is then separated, fortified and packaged. The process is why oat drink can be made from ordinary milling oats but requires substantial processing capital.

## What are oats used for?

Human food is the highest-value market and the one that has kept the crop viable: porridge and oatmeal, breakfast cereals and granola, oat flour in baking, and increasingly oat drink. The soluble fiber beta-glucan is the basis of the cholesterol-related health claims permitted in several jurisdictions, and it is the reason oats occupy a place in food marketing that their tonnage would not otherwise justify.

Animal feed takes the larger share of world production by volume. Oats remain a traditional feed for horses, where the fibrous hull suits their digestion, and are fed to cattle and sheep. Because oats have a lower energy density than corn or barley, they are a moderate rather than a maximum-energy feed, which suits some classes of livestock better than others.

Beyond grain, oats are grown for forage, cut green for hay and silage or grazed directly, and are used as a cover crop that suppresses weeds and holds soil over winter. Oat hulls, the by-product of milling, are burned for energy at mills, used as bedding and roughage, or processed into furfural, a chemical feedstock, and into oat hull fiber for food use.

## Supply chain and chokepoints

The chain is short and regional. Oats move from farm to country elevator to mill, mostly within a few hundred kilometers or across one border, and the seaborne trade is small. That makes the market unusually exposed to regional conditions: a bad harvest in the Canadian prairies or the Nordic countries is not easily offset by supply from elsewhere, because there is no deep world market to draw on.

Milling capacity is concentrated among a small number of companies in North America and Europe, and oat drink production has added a second layer of concentrated processing capacity. Because milling oats must be contracted and delivered to a specific quality, the relationship between a mill and its supplying farmers is closer than in the major grains, and contracted acreage covers much of the requirement.

Rail is the practical chokepoint for the largest trade flow. Canadian oats compete for railcars with canola, wheat and potash, and in a year when the rail system is stretched, oats, being the lowest-value cargo, tend to lose. Basis levels at United States mills reflect railcar availability as much as they reflect the crop.

The structural feature to understand is smallness. The whole world oat market is a fraction of the size of wheat or corn, so an event that would be minor in those markets, a single poor harvest, a new oat drink plant, a rail disruption, moves oat prices substantially. That is also why the futures contract is thin and why physical premiums often diverge from it.

## Key companies

- Richardson International: grain handler and oat miller, Canada
- Grain Millers: oat miller, United States
- Quaker Oats (PepsiCo): oat processor, United States, listed (PEP)
- Lantmännen: grain cooperative and oat processor, Sweden
- Oatly: oat drink producer, Sweden, listed (OTLY)
- Fazer Mills: oat miller, Finland

## Timeline

- 1900s: The tractor begins replacing the horse. Mechanisation removed the largest single market for oats, and world acreage has declined for a century as a result, a rare case of a major crop shrinking because its customer disappeared. (https://www.igc.int)
- 1877: Rolled oats are commercialised. Steam-rolling groats into flakes that cooked quickly turned oats into a convenient breakfast food and created the human food market that now sustains the crop. (https://www.fao.org/markets-and-trade/commodities-overview/en)
- 1997-01: The United States permits an oat health claim. Regulatory approval of a claim linking oat beta-glucan to reduced cholesterol gave the crop a durable food-marketing advantage and supported milling demand for decades. (https://www.fda.gov/food/food-labeling-nutrition)
- 2012: Oat drink production scales up in Sweden. Enzymatic processing that produced a stable, naturally sweet drink from ordinary milling oats created an industrial demand stream that has since spread across Europe and North America. (https://www.fao.org/markets-and-trade/commodities-overview/en)
- 2021-08: Prairie drought cuts the Canadian crop sharply. Extreme heat and drought across the Canadian prairies reduced the oat harvest severely, and prices reached their highest level in the series as milling supply became scarce. (https://data.imf.org/en/datasets/IMF.RES:PCPS)
- 2022-03: War disrupts Black Sea grain and lifts all cereals. Although oats are a minor Black Sea crop, the general grain price rise pulled oats up with them and raised the opportunity cost of planting oats instead of wheat. (https://data.imf.org/en/datasets/IMF.RES:PCPS)
- 2023-06: Oat drink capacity expansion meets slower demand growth. Plants built during the plant-based boom came online as category growth slowed, easing the contracted milling demand that had supported prices. (https://www.fao.org/markets-and-trade/commodities-overview/en)
- 2024-09: Acreage recovers as prices normalise. Canadian and Nordic plantings rebuilt after the drought years, restoring milling supply and returning the market to its long-run pattern of ample feed grain and tight milling grades. (https://www.igc.int)

## Frequently asked questions

### which country produces the most oats

Canada produced 3.4 million tonnes in 2024, 15% of the world's 22.4 million tonnes (FAOSTAT). Russia was second with 13%. Oats are a small crop, a fraction of the size of wheat or corn, and world acreage has declined for a century.

### why is the oat price quoted per bushel

Because the reference is the Chicago futures contract, which is quoted in dollars per bushel. A bushel of oats weighs thirty-two pounds, the lightest of the grain bushels, so a tonne is about 68.9 bushels. Multiply the quoted price by roughly 68.9 to compare with the per-tonne grains on this site.

### why did oat acreage decline

Because oats mainly fed horses, and tractors replaced horses. World acreage has fallen for a century as a result. Human food demand, and more recently oat drink, have kept the crop commercially viable but at a fraction of its former scale.

### what is the difference between milling and feed oats

Millers want plump, bright, dry grain with a high groat percentage and no frost damage or staining. Grain failing those tests is sold as feed at a substantially lower price. A wet harvest can push much of a crop from one category to the other without changing total production.

### what are oats used for

Human food takes the highest-value share: porridge, breakfast cereals, oat flour and oat drink. Animal feed takes more by volume, especially for horses. Oats are also grown for hay, silage and as a cover crop, and oat hulls are burned for energy or processed into furfural and food fiber.

### why must oats be heat-treated

Because the groat contains a lipase enzyme that turns its oil rancid within weeks. Kilning deactivates the enzyme and also produces the characteristic nutty flavour of oatmeal, which is why oats are always stabilized before being rolled or cut.

## Sources

- FAOSTAT Crops and livestock products (QCL), 2024. License: CC BY 4.0 (FAO Statistical Database Terms of Use). https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL
- CEPII BACI international trade database (HS22, V202601), BACI HS22 V202601, fetched 6 September 2026. License: Etalab Open Licence 2.0. https://www.cepii.fr/CEPII/en/bdd_modele/bdd_modele_item.asp?id=37
- IMF Primary Commodity Price System (PCPS), 2026-08-06, fetched 6 September 2026. License: © International Monetary Fund. All rights reserved (IMF terms of use). https://data.imf.org/en/datasets/IMF.RES:PCPS

Text last reviewed 2026-09-05. Cite as: Commodity Origins, "Where do oats come from?", https://commodityorigins.com/commodities/oats/.