U.S. farmers plant more wheat as prices soar

By Carey Gillam

BELTON, Missouri (Reuters) - Missouri farmer Tom Effertz wakes up thinking about the price of wheat. He checks the computer on his desk several times a day to see how the market is fluctuating, and speculates with a broker over the phone even as he oversees field work at his family farm.

With historically high prices for U.S. wheat - new all-time highs were posted in U.S. futures markets Friday - farmers like Effertz are seeing this autumn's wheat-planting window as an opportunity to get on board the market's wild ride.

Wheat prices have consistently set new record highs for about two months on supply woes across the globe, from Argentina to Australia.

Early Friday, the benchmark December hard red winter wheat futures contract hit a new all-time high at the Kansas City Board of Trade of $9.49-1/2 a bushel. A year ago, the price was $4.79 a bushel.

"The price is so good. I never thought we'd see it this high," said 73-year-old Effertz, who along with three brothers has operated his 12,000-acre Belton, Missouri farm since 1958.

The Effertz brothers said they plan to increase the acres they plant with wheat by more than 15 percent this year.

Indeed, from Texas to Nebraska, into Missouri and even into Iowa - the top U.S. corn-growing state - farmers are working to put as much wheat seed as they can get their hands on into the ground.

"Wheat acres, not only in the U.S. but around the world are going up, anywhere from 3 to 10 percent," said Don Roose, U.S. Commodities Inc. president. "It's a low input crop with a high return. And farmers like the prices."

The move come as wheat shortages are being felt around the world, driving up prices for bread and other wheat-based food products to levels that are affecting everyone from food companies to consumers.

Bob Sienknecht, an Iowa corn and soybean producer who has been farming since 1961, said the demand for wheat has pushed the crop into fresh favor with many growers in the Midwest.

He and other growers said corn acres are expected to decline in favor of wheat, as well as soybeans.

Soybeans, which are planted in the spring, have also seen record prices of late. Soybean futures at the Chicago Board of Trade hit a three-year high on Thursday with the benchmark contract at $10.17-3/4 a bushel.

Some farmers are harvesting their soybeans now and moving to immediately seed that ground with winter wheat to try to take advantage of high prices, he said.

"There is talk of a lot of wheat being planted around here next year," said Sienknecht. "A lot of people are going to put wheat down as they pull their beans up."

Bob Bowman, past president of the Iowa Corn Growers, who farms about 2,200 acres in east-central Iowa along the Mississippi River, said his land was not well suited for wheat but he was considering scaling back his corn to plant more soybeans.