Sowing the Seeds of Self-Reliance for Forty Years
Catastrophic Floods and Weather
Extremes Impact Food Crop Progress
26 April, 1997
by Geri Guidetti
All contents copyright © 1997, Geri Guidetti. All rights reserved.
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The first official agricultural statistics on this past week’s food crop progress have just been released by the USDA. While still preliminary and subject to revision and comment by the agency, they have released numbers that appear to confirm concerns expressed here over the past few weeks.
Let’s take the crops one at a time:
Winter Wheat Crop Condition: There are 19 states which produce nearly all of the U.S. wheat crop. For these states, the condition of winter wheat in the field is rated as Excellent (Ex), Good (G), Fair (F), Poor, (P) or Very Poor (VP). The following results are the average percents in each category reported by the 19 states:
VP P F G Ex
This Week 5 14 33 41 7
Prev. Week 6 13 35 40 6
Prev. Year 20 26 27 22 5
A quick glance might lead you to say that there is a great improvement in the condition of winter wheat this year over last. True. Last year was a disaster for winter wheat. You may remember from these updates last year that we had to look for spring-planted wheat to bail us out, and fortunately, good weather materialized just when we needed it. We had a bumper crop and ducked the bullet. Not that it built our reserves back up to comfortable levels—it didn’t.
Look more closely at this past and the previous week’s data. Over half—52-54% of the winter wheat crop due to be harvested in late spring and early summer is in fair to very poor condition. That leaves only 46-48% in good to excellent shape. But this is only part of the wheat picture.
Ninety-six percent of the Nation’s spring wheat crop—the wheat we depended on to see us through last year—is supplied by only 5 states: Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. For the week ending yesterday, April 27th, only 5% of the Nation’s spring wheat had been planted. Average wheat planted by this date in the years 1992-96 is 23%. That’s down over 78%. Now, we could be eternal optimists and say that we will make up for lost time and get planting in the next week or two to bring in that crop. But how much planting do you think is going on in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota right now? Even Montana has only 10% of its crop in when its average is 35%. South Dakota has in 2% while its average is 44%. The still-frozen and/or flooded lands in these wheat states will not yield to the plow for weeks yet. It will take nearly miraculous conditions to bring in a wheat harvest from these states this year.
Rice: 5 states produced 96% of the U.S. rice crop in 1996. In those states, 45% of the rice is planted as of yesterday. The average for this date in 1992-96 is 45%, right on the money. However, of the rice planted, only 14% of it has emerged. Average emerged for this date-- 24%. Weather conditions.
Barley: 6 states produce 82% of the U.S. crop. In those six states, 11% was planted as of yesterday. Average for 1992-96—28%. Weather conditions.
Oats: 9 states responsible for 56% of the U.S. oat crop. Of those, 40% of the crop has been planted compared to 36% average for 1992-96. Yes! Let’s eat oats!
Corn: 17 states produced 90% of our corn last year. In those, 18% of the corn has been planted as of yesterday. Average by the 27th of April, 15%. Yes! Another positive start. Keep fingers and toes crossed because a good corn crop should at least keep meat prices under control.
Peanuts: 8 states produce 99% of our peanut crop. Yesterday, 9% of the crop had been planted. Average planted on this date from 1992-96—16%. Bears watching. Time to stock up on Jif and Skippy? Won’t know for a few weeks.
Soybeans: Soybean data was not available today, however, two days ago the Bloomberg News reported that the Chicago Board of Trade saw sharp soybean price increases on trader speculation that China had bought two to three cargoes of American soybeans for May and June delivery. One cargo is approximately 50,000 metric tons or 1.8 million bushels.
"Such sales would come at a time when robust domestic and gloabal demand threatens to deplete United States inventories, which the Agriculture Department forecasts will drop to a 20-year low of 125 million bushels by September," the report says. Tim Elrod, an analyst from Pacific Futures Trading Company in Seattle, is quoted as saying, "There just aren’t any more beans, and demand from China is insatiable."
And now, from my email, comes this report , truly grassroots and perhaps being repeated across America. An Arizona reader states, "I stopped by the Tucson Cooperative Warehouse last week to pick up some bulgur (wheat) in bulk and was a bit surprised to see how the price at the register had jumped from the catalog price. In the April catalog, which went to press around the third week of Mach, bulgur in the 10# packages was listed at 53 cents/pound. At the register on 22 April, it was 71.3 cents/pound, an increase of 34.5%." He also notes that there is a 10% markup over catalog price for folks who aren’t co-op members. As a non-member, he paid 78.4 cents/pound.
You might want to try to get a handle on what is happening to wheat prices/availability in your area. Ask bulk suppliers what their prices are today, what they were last week, and last month. If you get data worth sharing, send me an email and I will try to get through it all for the next update.
Things on the food front are going to remain "interesting" for much of our lifetimes, I expect. I also expect revisions and further downgrading of crop potential for this season. Not pessimism--realism. Global demand is at an all-time high. Weather extremes, depleted soils, water shortages and the biological limits of plant production are converging with the frightening one-quarter million net new mouths to feed per DAY to create some serious back-room discussions around the globe.
Can the misery of North Korea occur here? Is it even possible for the richest country in the world, the so-called breadbasket of the world, to have a completely failed season or two? Where would we get the seed we grow each year for future crops? Where would we get all of our food if both the U.S. and Canada shared disastrous weather for one or two seasons? It has happened before—when there were far fewer mouths to feed.
Look at the data as it comes out. Watch global weather. Watch the food and commodities markets. Pay attention to food distribution politics around the world. Then answer the question for yourself......Geri Guidetti, The Ark Institute
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Food and Grain Supply Updates may be reprinted without permission IF no revisions are made and copyright and signature files remain intact.
All contents copyright © 1997, Geri Guidetti. All rights reserved.
Revised: 29 Apr 97
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