Crop Production To Be Down Sharply From 1987; Food Prices Suffer
An annual Agriculture Department survey confirmed Thursday that a deadening drought will curtail the fall corn harvest by a third or more, resulting in higher retail food prices for months and years to come. However, government officials said bountiful crops in recent years has built stockpiles so high the United States need not fear actual shortages on grocery shelves and can even continue exporting food. The report came hours after President Reagan signed a $3.9 billion relief bill that he acknowledged won't bring rain to crops already sweltering, but hopefully will help farmers survive to plant again next spring. The new surveys led USDA experts to predict the 1988 corn crop will total 4.48 billion bushels, down 37 percent from last year's harvest and the smallest output since 1983. Sharp reductions also were reported for soybeans, wheat and a number of other crops. Cotton, which thrived last month in the hot, humid weather, is expected to increase from last year. Overall, the department's Agricultural Statistics Board put total U.S. crop production at 88 percent of the 1977 average, a scale used to compare output from year to year. That matched the low 1983 reading, when sharp cutbacks in government acreage programs, along with drought, reduced crop production sharply. The corn crop is expected to average 78.5 bushels per harvested acre, down from 119.4 bushel per acre last year, a record year-to-year decline of 34 percent. Corn is the largest and most important crop grown by American farmers and, as a feed ingredient, is essential to the production of meat, poultry and dairy products. Assistant Secretary Ewen M. Wilson, the department's chief economist, said the drought may add 1 percent to the cost of food this year, 2 percent next year. ``Today's reports confirm that the drought has had a major impact on this year's crops,'' Wilson told reporters. ``But because of large pre-season stocks, total supplies are enough in most cases to assure and adequate food supply at home, satisfy foreign customers and meet our food-aid commitments.'' Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said in a statement, ``Today's crop report confirms our fears about the impacts of this summer's tragic drought. Fortunately, it appears we will have enough stocks to make it through this marketing year.'' The USDA's grim news came hours after President Reagan on Thursday signed a $3.9 billion disaster relief bill aimed at helping drought-stricken farmers recover. ``This bill isn't as good as rain,'' Reagan said to the nation's farmers. ``But it will tide you over until normal weather and your own skills permit you to return to your accustomed role.'' The new USDA crop estimates were based on field surveys as of Aug. 1. In May and June, before drought had made its biggest impact, USDA projected the corn harvest _ based on trends and an assumption of normal weather _ at 7.3 billion bushels. But those projections were revised downward a month ago to 5.2 billion bushels, assuming farmers got normal weather the remainder of the season. The soybean harvest was estimated at 1.47 billion bushels, down 23 percent from 1.9 billion bushels produced last year. Prospects last spring called for about 1.88 billion bushels, and the July projection was 1.65 billion bushels. Production of all wheat was indicated at 1.82 billion bushels, down 13 percent from 2.1 billion produced in 1987. In May and June, the USDA forecast this year's output would be up slightly. The July projection was 1.84 billion bushels The wheat total included winter wheat planted last fall, which barely stayed ahead of the drought. Later plantings of durum and other spring wheat varieties were brutalized by heat and dryness. Winter wheat production was estimated at 1.55 billion bushels, down 1 percent from last year. But durum and the other spring varieties, which are produced in the hard-hit northern plains, showed sharp declines. Durum was estimated at 54.6 million bushels, down 41 percent from last year's harvest, and other spring wheat was shown at 212 million bushels, down 53 percent from 1987. Cotton production was estimated at 14.9 million bales, up 1 percent from last year. The crop was projected at 13.7 billion bales in July. Department officials said U.S. grain production this year is expected to total 192 million metric tons, 31 percent smaller than the 1987 output. The total grain supply for 1988-89 _ which includes inventories on hand at the beginning of the season _ is down 24 percent from last season. In addition to the reductions in corn and soybean yields, Wilson said production of some other spring-planted crops has suffered, including: oats, 206 million bushels, down 45 percent; barley, 288 million bushels, also down 45 percent; and sorghum, 561 million bushels, down 24 percent. Wilson said USDA experts ``continue to believe that the drought will add only one percentage point'' to consumer food prices this year. The department has forecast a food price increase this year of 3 percent to 5 percent. Before the heat and dry weather, USDA had expected a 1988 food price hike of 2 percent to 4 percent. Wilson said the drought could add 2 percent to the consumer price index for food next year. ``That's on top of an additional estimated increase in food prices somewhere in the region of 4 percent,'' Wilson said. ``So this would bring it up to a total of 6 percent.'' He also said the United States is ``looking at an export situation that is not as good as it was a year ago.'' He said production abroad would have to take up the slack in world food supply caused by the drought. ``Our figures here today would indicate that food production in other countries has not been cut that much,'' he said. There remained a possibility that the United States would import some soybeans this year, Wilson said. He scoffed at any suggestion, however, that the United States may have lost its capacity to produce sizeable crop surpluses. He noted that 50 million farm acres are being kept out of production this year in addition to millions of additional acres in the long-term Conservation Reserve Program. Meanwhile, USDA weatherman Norton Strommen said rain in the midcontinent in recent days has not meant an end to the drought. ``The drought, as you can see, is still basically with us throughout the entire United States,'' Strommen said.
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