Harvest in nation’s breadbasket forecast to be the worst in 60-plus years
June 17, 2023 10:09 am ET The Wall Street Journal
LAKIN, Kan.—Were this a normal mid-June morning, farmer Gary Millershaski would be looking out at waist-high fields of golden wheat almost ready to be harvested.
Instead, he’s standing on a patch of mud, plucking at thin stalks of wheat that poke less than a foot out of the ground. It is the result of a multiyear drought that has left farmers in the country’s breadbasket with likely their worst wheat crop in more than 60 years. “You can tell this wheat—it tried so hard,” Millershaski says, pinching a strand in his hand. “But there’s just nothing there.”
Around a third of the winter wheat grown nationwide is expected to be abandoned because it is uneconomical to harvest it this year. It is the highest rate of abandonment since 1917, exceeding the rate of wheat abandoned during the 1930s Dust Bowl.
There is enough winter wheat for domestic consumption but volatile world market conditions have motivated U.S. mills to import wheat for flour, and the hit to U.S. farmers is acute.
Abandoned fields will be left out for cattle to graze on, slashed and used as hay or killed with chemicals so farmers can collect on crop insurance and get new seeds into the ground.
Millershaski, 59 years old, is abandoning 90% of the 4,000 acres in southwest Kansas he seeded with his two adult sons.
“This is going to be my worst wheat harvest ever,” he said.
Other Plains states like Oklahoma and Texas are expected to abandon wheat at even higher rates than Kansas.
Kansas is the top winter-wheat producing state in the country. The U.S. is among the top five global exporters of wheat.
Recent downpours have helped revive some wilting wheat fields, particularly in the northwest part of the state, and offered hope that milo, corn and other crops being planted now will flourish.
But for many places, the May and June rain is too late. “There was just irretrievable damage,” said Dan O’Brien, an agricultural economics professor at Kansas State University.
More than half of hard-red winter wheat in Kansas is in poor or very poor condition, according to the Agriculture Department. It is estimated that the state will produce an average of 29 bushels of wheat per harvested acre, down significantly from the 52 bushels an acre it yielded in 2021.
Comments