North Dakota Wheat Group Hosts Chinese Grain Buyers.

Byline: Mark Hanson

Mar. 9--China is the world's largest wheat producer, growing roughly 86 million metric tons. But the country also is the world's largest wheat consumer. China has about one-fifth of the world's population and consumes more than 100 million metric tons -- or 3.67 billion bushels -- of wheat each year.

That's three times as much wheat as is used in the United States.

It's also an export market that North Dakota would like to fill.

Looking to fill the shortfall of wheat, Chinese officials announced Thursday a commitment to buy 110 million bushels of U.S. wheat.

The country's grain-buying agency was in Bismarck on …