Colorado wheat farmers face a below-average crop this year, stunted by persistent drought. With the harvest well underway on the Eastern Plains, analysts are projecting statewide production of 56 million bushels — a 40 percent plunge from last year’s 94 million.
A saving grace for many farmers will be high wheat prices. The crop will bring an estimated $8.20 a bushel, according to Darrell Hanavan, executive director of the Colorado Association of Wheat Growers.
That’s down from a record $13.50 earlier this year on the Chicago Board of Trade but still a handsome price compared with the 10-year average of $3.48 that Colorado producers have collected.
Yet farmers whose wheat seed never germinated last fall, or whose sprouted crop withered from drought, are taking little solace in the strong wheat-commodity sector.
“High prices don’t help much if you don’t have anything to sell,” said Terry Swanson, a wheat farmer in Baca County, in southeast Colorado.
Swanson said only one-third of the wheat he planted last September came up. And of that, the yield from his recently completed harvest was a below-average 25 bushels per acre.
The outlook is better farther north in Colorado, where moisture has been somewhat better.
Weld County farmer Jerry Cooksey watched this week as his three harvesting combines cut neat swaths through thousands of acres of golden grain.
“It’s looking pretty good,” he said. “Prices are good, and even though it’s been a very dry year, last year’s moisture has helped us get a decent crop.”
The Cooksey farm, established in 1908 and now operated by three generations of the family, expects to harvest about 130,000 bushels this year.
But the income from the wheat will be eroded significantly by soaring operating costs, especially for fuel and fertilizer, Cooksey said. He’s paying $4.70 a gallon for diesel. Each of the combines guzzles about 100 gallons of fuel a day.
Cooksey’s wife, Damaris, recalled that as recently as 2000, wheat prices hovered around $2.50 a bushel.
She’s happy about this year’s higher prices, but with a caveat.
“It sounds good, but our input costs are just skyrocketing,” she said. “That’s just one of the challenges we face now.”
Steve Raabe: 303-954-1948 or sraabe@denverpost.com
