(NAFB.com) – U.S. wheat production for the 2024-2025 marketing year is estimated at 1.971 billion bushels, up nine percent year-to-year and the highest level since 2016-2017. The USDA says this stands in contrast to a long-term downward trend in U.S. wheat production that resulted in declining acreage as farmers switched to other crops like corn and soybeans. For the last two seasons, wheat acreage, as measured by area harvested, has risen. High wheat prices in Fall 2022 encouraged farmers to plan for substantially more wheat in 2023-2024. Despite the gains, a major drought in regions producing hard red winter wheat had negatively affected the harvestable volume of wheat. In the current marketing year, despite less acreage getting planted into wheat, more favorable weather is expected to boost the area harvested and yield compared to the previous season. Higher production is forecast for hard red winter, hard red spring, white, and durum classes of wheat.