The Wall Street Journal reports:

Were this a normal mid-June morning, farmer Gary Millershaski would be looking out at waist-high fields of golden wheat almost ready to be harvested.

Instead, he’s standing on a patch of mud, plucking at thin stalks of wheat that poke less than a foot out of the ground. It is the result of a multiyear drought that has left farmers in the country’s breadbasket with likely their worst wheat crop in more than 60 years.

“You can tell this wheat—it tried so hard,” Millershaski says, pinching a strand in his hand. “But there’s just nothing there.”

Around a third of the winter wheat grown nationwide is expected to be abandoned because it is uneconomical to harvest it this year. It is the highest rate of abandonment since 1917, exceeding the rate of wheat abandoned during the 1930s Dust Bowl.

There is enough winter wheat for domestic consumption but volatile world market conditions have motivated U.S. mills to import wheat for flour, and the hit to U.S. farmers is acute.

Abandoned fields will be left out for cattle to graze on, slashed and used as hay or killed with chemicals so farmers can collect on crop insurance and get new seeds into the ground.

Millershaski, 59 years old, is abandoning 90% of the 4,000 acres in southwest Kansas he seeded with his two adult sons.

“This is going to be my worst wheat harvest ever,” he said. [Continue reading…]