07/13/06 Wheat declines & Securing Ag

Wheat declines and securing agriculture. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. USDA`s National Ag Statistics Service issued its latest crop production report Wednesday morning. The report provided the Agency`s third look at winter wheat production. According to Greg Thessen - Head of the Field Crops Section for NASS - production is still forecast well below 2005. In fact - Thessen says Wednesday morning`s projection comes in 15-percent below 2005. But he says the 1.28-billion bushel forecast is a slight improvement from last month. THESSEN: Winter wheat production is forecast at 1.28 billion bushels. That's up a little bit from last month mainly due to increases in the soft red winter wheat growing areas. As producers got well into harvest there the soft red winter wheat crop turned out a little bit better than farmers had expected. Thessen says there`s a similar story with hard red winter wheat. While the 660-million bushel estimate is down substantially from one year ago - he says that`s a small three-tenths of a percent increase from June numbers. Wednesday`s report was the first projection of spring wheat production. And as is the case with winter wheat - Thessen says spring wheat numbers are down from 2005 THESSEN: Production came in at 465 million bushels which is down 7.8% from last year. The yield came in at 32.9 bushels per acre this year. That's down 11.3% from last season on top of the harvested acreage that we published in June was actually up 4% so that decline from last year is all due to a yield reduction. The U.S. Department of Agriculture today released a guide entitled "Pre-Harvest Security Guidelines and Checklist 2006" to help agricultural producers enhance security at the farm level. Agriculture and food account for 13 percent of the United States' gross domestic product, 18 percent of its employment, and $140 billion in revenue. Since September 11, 2001, there has been an increased awareness of the vulnerability of our domestic infrastructure, including the food and agricultural sector, to acts of terrorism. These practical measures help to protect against natural disasters, as well as the unintentional or intentional introduction of plant or animal diseases. The complete guideline is available via the USDA's website. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.