Wheat Industry Woes

The outlook for wheat producers isn’t all that bright right now and doesn’t look like it will improve anytime soon. In addition to the lower wheat prices, lower numbers for production, as well as domestic and export wheat use is down as well. Usually when production bushels are lower, it can mean higher prices for wheat producers — not this time — as World Outlook Acting Chairman Seth Meyer explains
Meyer: “You’ve got big world wheat supplies. We’ve got record world production in that we expect in 2014-15. We’ve bumped it up this month another 3.9 million tons.”
So USDA is forecasting over a 23 percent drop in U.S. wheat exports this next season and 18 percent increase in U.S. stocks and 14 percent decline in prices to an average mid-point a $5.90 a bushel.
And if that not so positive news isn’t enough, looks like spring wheat harvest is a struggle across some of the country as USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey says
Rippey: “Spring wheat harvest has been very tough for the Northern Plains and even westward into Idaho. We’ve had a lot of late season rain that has compromised the quality of the crop and slowed the harvest of an already delayed crop. We’ve not yet reached the three-quarters mark on the spring wheat harvest — 74 percent on September 14th — that is 12 points behind the five-year average and well behind last year’s 89 percent average.”