YouTube: https://youtu.be/CDA-rpnEGhg
In the United States, there are two wheat crops: spring wheat, which is currently being planted, and winter wheat, which will be harvested soon. Both are in danger.
As of late May 22, farmers in the United States had only seeded 49% of their anticipated spring wheat acres, one of the lowest rates on record.
This is particularly concerning because the US is the world's fourth-largest wheat exporter, and these difficulties are affecting output at a time when global wheat stocks are at crisis levels.
As a result, Washington has urged American farmers to plant more winter wheat this autumn, and the administration has announced that sowing on some environmentally sensitive terrain will be permitted starting this fall.
Nevertheless, droughts in some places, floods in others, and expensive agriculture inputs likely will combine to limit productivity growth.
North Dakota is the leading producer of spring wheat in the United States. Farmers have been unable to plant due to heavy, rainy weather, and North Dakota is likely to plant wheat on the smallest percentage of its cropland ever. Growers have only planted 27% of their crop so far, the second-slowest rate in four decades.
Kansas is the leading winter wheat producer in the United States. The winter wheat crop in Kansas was devastated by a drought, and the US winter wheat harvest potential has dropped by more than 25%. In mid-May, experts touring wheat fields in Kansas predicted that the harvest would be down by 28% this year.
Colorado, which borders Kansas, is facing a similar fate, with experts estimating that farmers will quit their crops at a rate of more than 30%.
Adding to these weather woes is the long-term declining trend in wheat production as farmers shift to corn and soybean farming, which is more lucrative due to demand from biofuel makers. This trend is expected to continue with the opening of two new soy processing factories in eastern North Dakota.
