Word: wheated
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Nature was kind this year, perhaps too kind. As the last cuttings of wheat are taken from the plains, the projected bumper harvest of 75 million metric tons (2.8 billion bu.) will smash last year's all-time high. The corn crop, 202 million metric tons, will also set a new record. Total American grain production will hit 322.5 million metric tons, more than 50% greater than the Soviet Union's third poor harvest in a row. But the bounty is bittersweet: farm income has fallen almost 40% since 1979. All that newly harvested grain has sent prices...
...many farmers will be largely protected from financial losses in 1981, as they have been since the Dust Bowl disasters of the 1930s, by an enormously expensive array of federal subsidy and price-stabilization programs. Since wheat prices this year have already fallen 21? below the "target price" of $3.81 per bu., farmers can expect some $350 million in "deficiency payments"-literally, Government handouts-to make up the difference. In addition, more than 1 billion bu. of grain are expected to end up in farmer-owned reserves by the end of the year under a program that will lend farmers...
...Administration is also engaged in an all-out effort to increase farm exports. Agriculture Secretary John Block leaves on a sales mission to the Far East early next month and another delegation from his department leaves for Moscow in a week. Already 60% of U.S. wheat and one-third of all farm produce ($45 billion worth) are sold overseas, propping up domestic prices to some extent and thus reducing the need for direct subsidies. The Soviets will require 40 million tons of imported grain this year. After being rebuffed by President Carter's embargo last year, Moscow has been...
...gently rolling plains of southern Russia and the Ukraine, stunted stalks of wheat and corn lay flat on the rich black earth, blighted by drought and wind. In the lower Volga region, rain mercilessly pelted burgeoning grain; harvesting combines stood idle as farmers watched the crop sink into the mud. The forecast is bleak this summer in the kolkhozy (collective farms) and sovkhozy (state farms) of the Soviet grain belt, where capricious weather has caused a third consecutive bad harvest-with an anticipated shortfall of 51 million metric tons in Soviet grain production...
Southern Russia and the Ukraine have sweltered through the hottest summer on record: wheat and corn have withered on the stalk. In addition, the weather played a cruel trick on farmers. When the grain was maturing and needed rain, the skies were cloudless. But as harvest time approached and dry weather was needed to reap the crop, thundershowers drenched the land. Corn, which is used widely for livestock feed, was badly affected in the flowering stage last month when it most needed moisture. Moreover, the unusual heat accelerated the growth of soybeans and barley so that everything...