Kansas is “the wheat state,” the officially adopted moniker that embraces its place as the country’s breadbasket.
Tall white grain elevators, some decorated with wheat murals, loom over tiny farm towns. For decades, Kansas led the nation in wheat production, and the U.S. led the world in wheat exports.
But this year’s meager wheat harvest turns that proud tradition on its head.
Kansas flour mills will likely buy wheat grown in Eastern Europe. It’s like Texas importing oil, West Virginia hauling in coal, or the Saudis shipping in sand.
Aaron Harries, Vice President of Research and Operations at Kansas Wheat, said it’s never happened before.
“That truly is unfortunate,” he said. “And it’s another hit against our domestic farmers.”
Thank Mother Nature.
The High Plains is dry in the best of times. For the last two years, a deep drought withered much of this prime wheat-producing region.
This year’s Kansas wheat harvest is shaping up to be the smallest since 1957 when the Eisenhower administration intentionally suppressed wheat production.
It’s much the same in Oklahoma. The crop is so poor, some farmers are dousing their measly crops with herbicide to contain their losses and collect insurance.
That creates searing economic pain radiating through prairie towns where summer wheat sales are the staff of life.
Thin Short Dead
Seen from a highway, the wheat crop doesn’t look horrible. A lot of it’s green. But step into one of the fields that John Thaemert farms near Sylvan Grove and you start to see the damage.
“All of my wheat looks pretty bad, but this is by far the worst. Thin. Short. Dead spots,” Thaemert said. “You could not justify taking this crop to harvest.”
The surviving plants here are less than half as tall as they should be this year and have hardly produced any grain. It isn’t worth the cost of harvesting, let alone all the money Thaemert spent on seed, chemicals, and fuel to plant and nurture this wheat.
About a quarter of the wheat fields in Kansas are in the same abysmal state. They’re worth more dead than alive.
Farmer Mike McClellan in Palco, Kansas, said he’ll probably kill his entire 1,500-acre wheat crop with herbicide. That will cost him another $20,000, but it will allow him to collect crop insurance. It will also keep the failed plants from drawing any more water from the parched soil and help check soil erosion.
Source: wsiu.org
Photo Credit: istock-zhaojiankang
Categories: Kansas, Crops, Wheat, Weather