U.S. farmers are planting wheat during a critical time, as food prices remain high because of a host of issues including widespread inflation, supply-chain snarls, droughts and Russia’s war in Ukraine. This year’s planting season is fraught for farmers, especially in the Plains states where much of wheat grows. Producers are seeding wheat through a third straight year of drought, and weather forecasts for another La Nina phenomenon — the counterpart to El Nino — means dry conditions are likely to stay.
On Monday, benchmark wheat prices spiked to a two-week high of $9.42 a bushel as Russia bombed several Ukrainian cities, including the capital of Kyiv, in retaliation for Saturday’s destruction of a bridge to Crimea. All of this underscores just how volatile prices are. The government will release September figures for food and other costs in its Consumer Price Index report Thursday. In its previous release for August, food was one of the biggest contributions to inflation — the index for that category surged 11.4% over 12 months, the biggest gain since 1979.Drought is limiting wheat yields Wheat prices spiked to an all-time high of around $12.75/bushel in the early weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, then fell 42% from those highs as the U.S. harvest rolled in, Ukraine exported some grain and recession fears weighed on whe …