U.S. farmers planted the smallest amount of land to winter wheat since 2010, the government said, based on an annual survey of growers. Sowings of 36.6 million acres were down 7 percent from the previous crop and this is the third year in a row of smaller plantings. The farm-gate price of wheat has fallen sharply since hitting a record high during the 2012 drought, making other crops more attractive. “World wheat production remains record high,” said the USDA in its monthly WASDE report, with a record crop harvested in 2015/16 and a record carry-over supply forecast at 232 million tonnes, up 9 percent in a year.
Hard red winter wheat, the dominant U.S. variety, grown in the Plains and used in baking bread, showed the largest losses in area, down 9 percent from 2015, said the Winter Wheat Seedings report. Plantings fell 700,000 acres each in Kansas and Texas, the top two states for winter wheat.
Winter wheat provides the lion’s share of the U.S. wheat crop — 1.37 billion bushels out of last year’s 2.052 billion bushels.
Plantings were far smaller than traders expected; in fact, the lowest estimate in a Reuters survey ahead of the report was 38.25 million acres, or 1.64 million acres larger than the USDA reported. As a result, wheat futures prices in Chicago surged 2.6 percent, said Agrimoney.