Word: wheats
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...drought-weary farmers in the West, hot weather and high winds have brought another threat to this year's dwindling crop. Hordes of Russian wheat aphids, which thrive on dry wheat and barley fields, are rampaging through 15 Western states, from California and Arizona to Montana. The tiny stalk suckers (size: 0.1 in.) have nearly wiped out harvests in some fields. The bugs are natives of the Soviet Union, Iran and Afghanistan, but were transplanted to Mexico by unknown means in 1980 and have been moving north ever since. Last year the insects caused $36 million in damage across...
...decision struck down a 1967 law that requires all pasta sold in Italy to contain durum wheat flour, which is firmer and more expensive than other varieties. Italians, of course, will still be able to buy their favorite pastas, but their grocery shelves will also contain what the newspaper La Repubblica called "gluey and insipid pasta from Germany or the Netherlands...
...most popular examples is gambling on where Standard & Poor's 500 stocks are going. A successful bet that the index will fall could offset losses in declining stocks. Stock-index futures are traded much like any other commodity, except that they do not represent anything real, such as wheat, tin or pork bellies...
...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, and could be less than half...
...USDA estimates assume normal weather for the rest of the growing season, even though most long-range forecasts, including those of the National Weather Service issued last week, predict no break in the hot, dry weather. Chicago's commodities-futures traders tended to believe the worst. Prices for corn, wheat and soybean contracts surged after the USDA forecast was released...