Government predicts nation’s winter wheat crop up 17 percent

    WICHITA— Amid a deepening world hunger crisis and low global grain stocks, the Agriculture Department forecast on Friday that the nation’s farmers are poised to harvest a bountiful wheat crop this season with continued strong commodity prices.
    The department’s estimated harvest of 1.78 billion bushels of winter wheat, if realized, would make the 2008 winter wheat crop 17 percent larger than last year, the National Agriculture Statistics Service said. Yields nationwide were pegged at an average of 44.3 bushels per acre.
    In Kansas, the nation’s leading wheat producer, the forecast pegged the winter wheat crop at 357.2 million bushels, up 26 percent from last year’s weather-plagued harvest. Average yields were expected at 38 bushels per acre.
    The agency’s official crop estimate for Kansas is a bit more modest than the 379.1 million bushels estimated a day earlier by industry leaders who spent three days checking fields across the state as part of the Wheat Quality Council’s annual winter wheat tour.
    Mike Woolverton, a grain marketing economist at Kansas State University who was on that tour, said his analysis showed the six-year average for the Kansas wheat harvest at 344 million bushels. His average does not count last year’s wheat harvest that was devastated by a late spring freeze and harvest rains.
    “So we are probably looking at a slightly above average crop for Kansas this year, providing everything goes well between now and then,” Woolverton said.
    Wheat production in the other major winter wheat growing states of Oklahoma, Washington and Texas trailed significantly behind Kansas in the government rankings.
    In neighboring Missouri, the wheat crop was estimated to come in at 58.2 million bushels, with average yields of 52 bushels an acre.
    In its world agricultural supply-and-demand report, the Agriculture Department said Friday the U.S. wheat outlook was for higher production, lower exports and increased domestic use.
    The agency projected the average farm price of wheat for the season at between $6.60 and $8.10 a bushel, compared with the current-year record of $6.55 per bushel.
    Woolverton said he was initially surprised that wheat prices were projected to stay high despite the larger crop, but he said high corn prices will likely increase demand for wheat as livestock feed.
    Also, U.S. and global demand for wheat for human food use is increasing, and some countries will want to rebuild wheat reserves that have been reduced to critical levels.
    Growers have been concerned about the high input costs for fertilizer, seed, energy and other costs, Woolverton said.
    “The wheat tour and the report that came out today should relieve some of those worries because it looks like commodity prices should remain fairly strong,” Woolverton said. “I don’t think they need to fear a collapse of commodity prices — not based on this report.”
    The supply-and-demand report estimated total wheat production at 2.4 billion bushels, up 16 percent. The figure includes durum and other spring wheat production projected at 614 million bushels, up 12 percent.
    But despite the bigger anticipated wheat crops across the country, the nation’s total wheat supplies are expected be up only 4 percent because of historically low carry-over grain stocks.
    This is despite a projected record global wheat production of 656 million tons, up 8 percent from last year. The agency said higher production was expected for most of the world’s major exporting countries — including Australia, Canada, Russia and Ukraine, among others.
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    On the Net:
    National Agricultural Statistics Service: http://www.nass.usda.gov