TANNER: Right now the world is in desperate need of wheat, and we want to do as best of a job as we can to feed them.

Chris Tanner says coming up short in the face of global wheat scarcity isn't just a missed paycheck for Kansas farmers.

A smaller harvest could push up prices to consumers for everything wheat is used in. REMBERT: Lapp says bread prices have been ticking up over the past year. And, you know, the cure for high prices, of course, is high prices. Bill Lapp is an agricultural economist in Omaha.īILL LAPP: We're going to have the smallest - the hard red winter wheat crop since 1963. The drought's threatening that bottom line and could push wheat prices even higher. REMBERT: Farmers need a solid harvest to balance expenses. TANNER: And see, we've rapidly wound up in the hole, so. Even with wheat fetching about $11 a bushel, he'd lose money on that field. With the drought, Tanner thinks he'll be lucky to get 20 this year. This field usually raises as much as 50 bushels an acre. REMBERT: So he's shelled out at least $220. Harvest expense - approximately $40 an acre. Now, your herbicide expense is going to be about $10. Well, right now current price of fertilizer is a little over a dollar a pound. I said I put a hundred pounds of fertilizer out. TANNER: Just throw 50 bucks out there for rent. After all, it takes more than just sunshine and water. REMBERT: It's a double whammy because high fertilizer and fuel prices make it so expensive to grow crops lately. But if you don't have anything to sell, it doesn't really matter what the prices are, so. A 100 million bushel drop works out to a $1 billion loss for Kansas farmers. Wheat's asking price has shot up 50% this year. And Kansas wheat farmers will likely miss out on profiting from historic prices. Then you think, OK, well, who can make up this grain?

Ukraine has, you know, anywhere from 5 to 7 million tons of last year's crop that normally would have been marketed by now that's stuck inside the country. JOSEPH GLAUBER: Wheat was tight to begin with, all of a sudden. Joseph Glauber with the International Food Policy Research Institute says the timing is unfortunate. Kansas is one of the country's top wheat-producing states, so a smaller crop could make a dent. That's 30% less than last year's harvest. REMBERT: It's fields like these leading industry groups to predict a 100 million bushel drop in Kansas' wheat harvest this year. It'll shatter out even before we get here. You can see the seeds kind of exposed there. Standing in one of his fields in northwest Kansas, Chris Tanner wonders if it'll even make it through harvest.ĬHRIS TANNER: I mean, like, this head down here, there's going to be nothing in it. But this year, the blistering conditions have withered some of the crop into short, patchy straw. Here's Nebraska Public Media's Elizabeth Rembert.ĮLIZABETH REMBERT, BYLINE: Usually, Kansas is known for its fields of waist-high golden wheat. Hot, dry conditions are scorching the wheat crop in Kansas.

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