Fundamentally Speaking

Concluding our series where we look at the 20-year capital annualized growth rates (CAGR) for harvested acreage, yields and production for the major crops in the top producing states and the U.S.; this graph shows wheat.

We took the top producers of both winter and spring wheat where a number of states are on each list and came up with a group of the top 20 states, though Arkansas was removed as its wheat production has plummeted since 2000 from 59.4 million to just 2.60 million bushels produced last year.

Hence, we have 19 states that track the CAGR in wheat harvested acreage, yields and trends over the past two decades.

Living in California I have seen the decline in a number of crops over the years based on economics, water restrictions and changing demand and this includes cotton, stone fruits, citrus, alfalfa and of course wheat.

Wheat production in the "Golden State" has fallen by an annual average of 7.8% each year since 2000 mostly due to harvested acreage that has declined by an average of 6.7% per annum with yields off 1.2%.

It appears that the states that grow mostly soft red winter wheat (SRW) have seen the largest declines linked to poor prices in recent years and increased full season soybean plantings.

This would include Ohio where output has declined by an average of 6.3%, Indiana down an average of 3.8% and Missouri off 3.4%.

On the other hand, Montana has seen its output increase by an average of 2.4% since 2000 annually with Colorado up 1.6%, though they are the only two states to see production expand.

For the country as a whole, wheat output has contracted annually by 0.7% for though yields have average an annual increase of 1% harvested, acreage has retrenched on average by 1.8% per annum.

(KM)