09/15/08 World wheat crop gets bigger

Farm and Ranch September 15, 2008 A USDA report Friday left unchanged from August U.S. wheat production, exports and ending stocks for the current marketing year. But an already record large world wheat crop is estimated to be even larger. Joe Barker with Country Hedging in Kansas City says USDA increased world wheat production by about 5 ½ million tons from last month. Barker: "The biggest increases were with the Former Soviet Union where we increased wheat production by almost five million metric tons. The EU-27 was increase by a little over four million tons. We did see decreases in Argentina by one and Australia by three from what last month's estimates left for the 08-09 wheat crop. This did take the world wheat ending stocks for 08-09 from 136.16 to 139.89." USDA does say tight world supplies of higher quality milling wheat are expected to support domestic U.S. prices. The department is projecting a national average farm price for wheat $7.25 a bushel. Barker says short term he is a little friendly to wheat, however: Barker: "But long term if the trend continues with crude oil going down and the dollar being strong wheat is probably going to continue in a down trend." USDA did lower its forecast for the U.S. corn crop pegging it at 12.1 billion bushels, down 216 million from last month. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.