Buried in the many mountains of USDA data last week was the March 2026 Prospective Plantings report. There you will find one specific figure among the many that was a record: USDA’s lowest ever prospective plantings estimate for wheat. It was not a surprise. U.S. wheat plantings and harvested acreage have been declining since what seems like forever. A long-term view shows (in the chart below) a 31 percent, 20-million-acre decline in prospective plantings since 2008. That is more acreage removed from wheat production than the current planted acreage in France and Germany combined. 

There is a story here about why wheat has fallen from farmers’ grace. It starts with the 1996 Freedom to Farm Act and extends through the curre...