North Dakota’s wheat fields are set to deliver another bumper crop after last year’s record. That’s a mixed blessing for farmers like Jim Pellman, providing plenty of grain to sell but at too-low prices.
Demand hasn’t kept pace with the expanding supplies, leaving futures for the hard red spring wheat variety grown in the state trading below $6 a bushel. That’s not enough for many growers to profit as prices for seeds, chemicals and equipment have stayed high. Pellman is taking a pragmatic view.
“From the farmer’s perspective, having an above-average crop and maybe mediocre prices, at least I can survive,” he said. “There’s going to be a lot of bushels for sale.”
An annual tour of wheat fields in the state — which competes with Kansas as the top US producer of the grain — was finding crop yield potential below the US Department of Agriculture’s outlook for yields of 59 bushels per acre, a record level reached last year.
Dozens of flour millers, bakers, crop traders and farmers fanned out this week across the state with yard sticks to estimate yield potential ahead of the harvest, which will begin as early as next month. Drought conditions in the northern half of the state impeded some fields, while relatively ample rainfall elsewhere improved prospects and muddied the boots of the crop scouts trudging through thick stands of wheat.
Rainfall was also accompanied last month by tornadoes and the severe wind storm known as a derecho. Some farmers had grain storage bins get destroyed and several wheat fields had plants laying down, or lodged. The USDA declared it a disaster.
“We’ve got guaranteed poverty this year,” Charlie Rohde, a retired farmer, said at one of the nightly crop-tour meetings in Devils Lake.
After three days of scouting, the Wheat Quality Council estimated spring wheat yields at 49 bushels per acre, compared with 54.5 a year ago.
“I thought it looked a bit better than that,” Dave Green, Wheat Quality Council executive vice president, said of the final assessment, which is still historically elevated.
Pellman raises wheat along with soybeans, corn and canola in McClusky, North Dakota. Earlier this month, he was elected chairman of the US Wheat Associates and has also traveled to Asia in efforts to drum up demand.
The Trump administration has announced trade deals with countries including Japan, Indonesia and Bangladesh that should result in increased purchases of American wheat. USDA data Thursday showed weekly US wheat export sales of more than 700,000 tons, the most since May, with Indonesia as the top buyer.
Still, spring wheat futures remained under pressure ahead of a bumper harvest, falling more than 5% this month. Some growers may end up putting their grain in storage in the hopes that prices improve.
“There’s quality wheat left from last year,” Pellman said. “I know farmers that have wheat in the bin that are going to sit on it because it’s too cheap.”
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
