2 ms·
Just read the other day about how this year's U.S. wheat harvest will be the lowest since some year in the teens of the prioir century. Wheat prices are down s
by pasbesoin 9y ago
Just read the other day about how this year's U.S. wheat harvest will be the lowest since some year in the teens of the prioir century.
Wheat prices are down significantly. And vegetarian protein demand is up. Farmers have been switching to garbanzo beans (chickpeas) and lentils.
Sorry, I don't have the link right at hand.
- somecontext 9y agoFor some context if anyone in interested, it appears that before WWII, the peak production of wheat in the United States was in 1915 with ~1 billion bushels/year. The expected production for 2017 is over ~1.7 billion bushels/year. The last time production was even close to the peak pre-WWII level was in 1962. Sources: the absolutely amazing "Crop production historical track records" from the USDA available at http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/htrcp/htrcp-04-13-2017.pdf http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/current/htrcp/htrcp-04-... for historical numbers and https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/latest.pdf https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/latest.pdf for 2017 estimates. It may be interesting to note that the area harvested has gone down by ~40%, but of course the yields have increased -- by a factor of ~2.7.