Wheat accounts for 20 percent of calories consumed in the world, and the earth’s population is booming. Yet, acres of wheat in the U.S. – the world’s largest exporter – have been decreasing for 30 years. U.S. wheat is suffering from a lack of competitiveness.

Wheat plantings are about 30 percent lower than in the early 1980s, down from an average of 85 million acres to about 60 million acres in recent years. USDA’s Economic Research Service reports that wheat’s share of U.S. field crop receipts has fallen from about 20 percent in the 1980s to about 11 percent in recent years. Export growth is flat, planted acreage is declining, and domestic use has suffered from a proliferation of challenges. If these trends are not reversed, the wheat chain that relies on domestic sources of wheat will face supply challenges that will ultimately impact consumers.

“Addressing the Competitiveness Crisis in Wheat”

In June 2006, four key wheat groups – NAWG, the North American Millers’ Association, U.S. Wheat Associates and the now-disbanded Wheat Export Trade Education Committee - released the first paper outlining major competitiveness problems facing the U.S. wheat industry. This paper served as a launching point for the Wheat Summit process that followed.

Wheat Summits I and II

NAWG and the North American Millers’ Association held the first Wheat Summit in September 2006 to allow representatives from different parts of the wheat value chain to interact and discuss the ongoing issue of competitiveness. Attendees at this private meeting included representatives from every part of the industry, from producers to processors, transportation interests to grocery stores.

Attendees at the 2006 Summit agreed to form workgroups focused on technology and research; domestic competitiveness; domestic farm policy; and export markets. Proposals from each of the workgroups were presented at a second Summit meeting in April 2007. Majority opinions from that meeting are available here.

“The Case for Biotech Wheat”

In September 2009, five wheat industry organizations released “The Case for Biotech Wheat,” an eight-page paper outlining the competitiveness problem facing global wheat production and the wheat industry itself. The paper explains why this matters for the entire food chain – wheat growers, wheat users at home and abroad, and consumers in the industrialized and developing worlds.

20 Percent by 2018

One of NAWG’s four strategic initiatives, approved in January 2008, is to work toward increasing wheat yields 20 percent by 2018 – just nine short years away. Achieving this goal is necessary to both maintain wheat’s competitiveness and ensure adequate supplies for the domestic wheat industry and our export partners. Many other organizations and leaders throughout the industry have adopted this goal, and these groups are working together to achieve it through adoption of biotechnology, achievement of positive federal farm and trade policy and other means.