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Harvest Public Media is a reporting collaboration focused on issues of food, fuel and field. Based at KCUR in Kansas City, Missouri, Harvest covers agriculture-related topics through a network of reporters and partner stations throughout the Midwest.

Farmers Plant Less Wheat On Export Worries

Farmers across the Midwest are planting less wheat. Harvest Public Media’s Jeremy Bernfeld explains why.

Worries about selling their wheat on the global market pushed U-S farmers to plant millions of fewer acres of wheat over the last two years. That’s according to a new government report.

Dan O’Brien, an economist at Kansas State University, says that has a lot to do with big supplies and a strong dollar.

“In the face of low profitability we’re scaling back production a little bit and starting the process, eventually, of moving towards lower supplies and higher prices," O'Brien says.

But that could take years. In the meantime, the wheat belt may keep shrinking as farmers switch to planting more corn.