wheat

At a laboratory nicknamed the Bread Lab, researcher Stephen Jones, who looks like "a lovably geeky high school teacher,” is trying to re-invent bread, "the most important food in history," says a New York Times Magazine story.

U.S. wheat exports are headed for "a new record low of 850 million" bushels due to mammoth supplies worldwide and the strong dollar, which pushes U.S. wheat out of the price range of some importers, says the monthly Wheat Outlook. Exports usually are around the 1 billion-bushel level and amount to 45 percent of the crop.

In one of its final looks at this year's wheat crop, the USDA said the harvest totaled 2.052 billion bushels, 4-percent smaller than its previous estimate.

Wheat, often called the staff of life and one of the staple foods of the world, could be transformed in a few years with the arrival in the U.S. of hybrid strains, says Agriculture.com.

Only a few wheat scientists around the world are focused on developing wheat strains that can resist three fungal diseases - known as stem, leaf and stripe rust - that are capable of causing huge crop losses, says a University of Minnesota professor.

Global inventories of wheat and soybeans will stand at record highs at the end of the current marketing year, swollen by huge crops, said the International Grains Council in its monthly Grain Market Report.

Farm subsidies in China, India, Brazil and Turkey cost U.S. wheat growers nearly $1 billion in revenue annually, says a study commissioned by two U.S. wheat groups.

The Australian government forecasting agency raised its estimate of beef exports in the trade year that ends next July 1 by 20 percent, as ranchers liquidate their herds in the face of drought worsened by El Niño, said Reuters.

Canada, one of the five largest wheat growers and exporters of the world, faces a huge decline in wheat production this year, says the monthly World Agricultural Production report.

Farm-gate prices for corn, soybeans and wheat, the three most widely planted crops in the country, "have declined sharply from record levels set in recent years and no quick price recovery is expected," says the University of Missouri think tank FAPRI in an update of its agricultural baseline.

Blistering heat and arid weather pushed the wheat crop to maturity two weeks earlier than usual in Washington State and undermined its value, says the Spokane Spokesman-Review.

Economic turmoil in China, the world's largest importer of rice and soybeans, could dampen world trade in feedstuffs and soybeans, said the International Grains Council.

The world grain harvest "is still expected to be the third-largest ever," despite a heat wave that hurt the wheat and corn crops in Europe, said the International Grains Council in its monthly Grain Market Report.

The annual inspection tour of the spring wheat crop in North Dakota, northwestern Minnesota and northern South Dakota concluded on Thursday with forecasts of a record yield in the region. Sponsored by the Wheat Quality Council, the four-day tour forecast a record yield of 49.9 bushels an acre, topping last year's 48.6 bushels, says Agweek.

The three most widely planted U.S. crops - corn, soybeans and wheat - account for roughly 68 percent of crop insurance sales, says USDA, a dominating total but smaller than 15 years earlier. Then, the three crops were responsible for 80 percent of acres enrolled in crop insurance. With new types of policies and more crops eligible for coverage, the share held by the three major crops has declined. USDA says pasture, forage and range land zoomed to 48 million acres insured in 2012 compared to zero in 1997.