09/13/07 Ever tighter world wheat supplies

Farm and Ranch September 13, 2007 You have to go back to the days of the "Great Grain Robbery" in the 1970s to find U.S. wheat supplies as tight as they are forecast to be in the coming year. That was when the Soviet Union began buying U.S. wheat. In a report Wednesday, the USDA projected U.S. wheat ending stocks next May to be only 362 million bushels. The forecast for world wheat ending stocks was also lowered from month ago estimates to 112 million metric tons, the lowest in about 30 years. Those world numbers may get even smaller. Jonah Ford of Great Pacific Trading in Grants Pass, Oregon says the USDA has the drought impacted Australian wheat crop at 21 million metric tons. A number he expects will be reduced down the road. Ford: "The locals down in Australia I have talked to are more 14-16. They are fairly pessimistic on production in Australia. I am leaning with the guys down there on the ground and I think they are going to come in lower than the 21 that the USDA put out." Wheat prices are already at all-time record highs and Ford thinks we'll see them higher still. Ford: "Still a large swath and a lot of buying action out there. We could see $10 wheat." The new forecast for the U.S. corn production is up two percent from the August report at 13.3 billion bushels. That would be the largest crop ever based on the second highest yields ever of nearly 156 bushels an acre. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.