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When the Agriculture Department released its first estimate of drought damage last month, the news was grim. But when an updated outlook was released last week, the figures were even worse. The Government forecast that the year's corn harvest will reach only 4.48 billion bu., down 37% from last year. A month ago, the decline was pegged at 26%. The estimate of the wheat harvest, down 13% for the year, is virtually unchanged from July, but the soybean crop is looking far more stunted than it did a month ago. Production may total just 1.47 billion bu...
...crop forecast issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA estimated that U.S. grain production in 1988 may be only 212 million metric tons, down 24% from 1987. The corn crop is particularly hard hit -- 26% smaller than last year. The USDA pegged soybean production at 1.65 billion bu., down 13%. Wheat output is expected to decline 13%, to 1.84 billion bu. That drop would be much worse were it not for the winter wheat crop. Planted last fall and almost completely harvested, winter wheat largely escaped drought damage. But the smaller, spring wheat crop has been devastated...
Though discouraging enough, the USDA report may understate the problem. "The commercial surveys will doubtless be bolder, and lower, than those of USDA," says Conrad Leslie, one of the nation's leading private crop forecasters. Leslie predicts a corn crop of 4.4 billion bu., 800 million bu. less than the USDA estimate. A survey by the National Corn Growers Association is even more pessimistic, predicting that this year's corn yields will be down as much as 42% from last year's. The USDA estimates assume normal weather for the rest of the growing season, even though most long-range...
...notably for consumers, the cost of food is going up. The Government reported last week that prices paid to farmers for grain crops rose 3.7% in June alone, after increasing 6.1% during the first five months of the year. Since January, soybean futures prices have risen from $4.70 per bu. to more than $10, and traders are talking about "beans in the teens" by year's end, which would break the record high of $12.90 reached during a shortage in 1973. As a result, the Department of Agriculture now estimates that food prices will rise between 3% and 5% this...
...winter-wheat harvest escaped the effects of the drought. But the spring- wheat crop in a belt from Montana to Minnesota, which accounts for one- fourth of the year's total harvest, may amount to only 250 million bu. That is less than half of last year's level. Result: consumers are likely to pay higher prices for pasta, much of which is made from the northern durum wheat. Should the drought persist through the summer, the same will hold true for soybean- based foods, which range from trendy tofu to salad dressing...