U.S. Farmers Turning Away From Wheat
The breadbasket of the U.S. has been synonymous with wheat production for more than a century, with Kansas being the top wheat producer in the world’s top wheat exporting country.
However, rising global production and falling prices are resulting in the reduction of wheat acreage, with the number of winter wheat acreage in the U.S. falling to its lowest point in 99 years.
Lower profitability from wheat production is turning farmers toward corn and sorghum, and experts believe that the trend will continue in the long term. Winter wheat acreage fell to 32.6 million acres last year, the lowest point since 1909, according to the USDA, and output fell to 1.27 billion bushels - the lowest since 1978.
And while U.S. wheat numbers decline, Russia and Ukraine are seeing a climbing production of high-quality wheat - something that has pushed global wheat production to a record 758 million tons for 2017-2018, and has pressured prices.
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