| Like many regions in France, Burgundy has a strong agricultural activity best-known for its wines, meat products like Charollais beef and Bresse poultry, cheeses and the famous « Dijon mustard ». Some are exported the world over. But this French province also grows cereals like wheat and barley. Wheat is particularly important because it is a staple food and wheat floor the main ingredient in bread. Maize, rice, and wheat count for more than half of all the calories in humankind’s diet and 87 % of all grain production in the world. If the world average yield for wheat in 2009 was 3,02 metric tons per hectare, yields vary greatly from 7.45 tons/ha in France to 4.75 tons in China and only 2.99 tons in the USA. That same year, Australia’s yield fell to 1.6 tons/ha because of drought in a country that is usually the world's second-largest wheat exporter. This commodity is the most important cereal traded on international markets. Bad harvests and speculation add volatibility to wheat prices that can double in just a few months. For exemple, the price of a ton of wheat more than double between June 2010 and year end. A surge in food prices increases automatically the number of poor people and the number of undernourished people worldwide.
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