Something Strange Is Happening With Wheat — And Your Bread, Flour, and Pasta Are Next

Two days ago — Tuesday May 13 — the USDA released the May WASDE report and the wheat numbers shocked commodity markets. U.S. wheat production is forecast at 1.561 billion bushels for 2026-27 — the lowest since 1972, down 424 million bushels from last year. Wheat acreage is at its lowest since 1919. Only 28% of the winter wheat crop is rated good to excellent — down from 54% a year ago. Wheat futures hit their highest level since June 2024, up 27% year over year.

Today I am walking you through exactly what those numbers mean for your grocery bill — your bread, your flour, your pasta, your cereal. Not commodity-market jargon. Real consumer impact, with a clear action plan for what to do right now while there is still time.

Transcript

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Hello everyone and welcome to Sutton's Days. If you're new here, my name is Lisa. We are all about pantry preparedness. If you have caught any of the news at all, you might have caught all of the attention that wheat is getting since last Tuesday. And I did a deep dive into this and thought that I would share with you what I found so that you can better prepare for what's coming down the pike. So first, I want to let you know that there is a report and it comes out uh every single month. Every single month it's released from the USDA, and it's called the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates. And it's a very important report. It's the single most important document in the global commodity markets. That's a heck of a statement, right? Every farmer, every food manufacturer, every grain trader on the planet watches this report. And it's probably all the more reason why we should. Now, it tells you the official government forecast for how much of each major crop is going to be produced, consumed, and available globally and domestically. And that part is important in the coming marketing year. So they're projecting, based on what's you know happening, how much is going to be available in the coming year. Now, the May report released on Tuesday, May 13th, it contained wheat numbers that genuinely surprised literally everybody, the entire market. And I want to walk you through the specific figures that it provided because I think the numbers kind of speak for themselves. The USDA uh projected total U.S. wheat production for the 26-27 growing season at 1.561 billion bushels. Sounds like a lot, okay? But that number uh, you know, it needs to have the proper context to completely understand what's happening. See, last year the total U.S. wheat production was 1.985 billion bushels. The year before that was 1.979 billion bushels. So we're looking at a projected drop of 424 million bushels from last year. That's not a mathematical error. They didn't round it off wrong, you know. That is a 21% decline in production in one year. Now, here's the number that really puts it into perspective. Um, if that forecast holds, 2026 will represent the lowest U.S. wheat production since 1972. Now, even though it feels like yesterday, it's not. The last time we produced this little wheat, Gerald Ford was president. And a loaf of bread cost about 28 cents at the store. Wheat Futures responded immediately. Jumped right on it. As of this week, wheat is trading at around $6.60 per bushel. That is the highest level since June of last year. Up 27% from a year ago. The July hard red winter wheat contract briefly touched $7.20 per bushel in late April, up 28% since the start of this year alone, just in the last five, you know, four and a half months. So uh, you know, why is this happening? There's a multitude of reasons, but the the main cause is drought. That's the number one cause. Persistent, severe, crop-destroying drought across the southern plains, uh, which is where a majority of U.S. hard red winter wheat is grown. Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Colorado. The heart of American wheat country. All right there. The USDA is currently rating only 28% of winter wheat as good to excellent condition. 28%. A year ago at the same time, it was 54% of the crop was rated good to excellent. That's another drop. That's nearly a 50% drop in crop quality in one year. The lead economist uh for grains and oil seeds at Cobank, that is one of the largest agricultural lenders in the country, put it bluntly in late April in a report, most hard-red winter-producing states are suffering from elevated crop stress. As poor to very poor ratings climb, abandonment rates also typically follow. In Kansas alone, the top wheat-producing state in the country, okay, over 40% of the crop was rated poor to very poor as of late April. Over 40%. Farmers in Kansas are looking at their fields right now and literally making painful decisions about whether to even bother harvesting it at all or to abandon the crop and file insurance claims. Now, here is uh the part of the story that I think you know a lot of people are not necessarily getting that they're kind of missing because it's actually more alarming than just the drought itself. I wish that was the only thing we had to worry about, but it's not. The USDA reported on March 31st that the total U.S. wheat planted acreage for 2026 forecast at 43.775 million acres. That is the lowest wheat acreage in America since 1919. 1919. That's 107 years ago. We've never been this low in 107 years. So why has the acreage been declining for so long? You know, that's that's gonna be the I guess the top question that anybody asks. And it's because wheat has not been profitable enough compared to corn and soybeans. So farmers have been systematically shifting from wheat over to more profitable crops over the decades. The financial signal to plant wheat was not there, so farmers didn't plant it. You start doing all the math, now combine a century-low planted acreage with a severe drought, destroying a significant portion of what was planted, and you get the USDA's 54 54-year production low forecast. These two factors, those two, are compounding each other. Even without a drought, we were planting less wheat in any year since 1919. The drought is hitting a crop that was already undersupplied. Now there's one more number I want you to understand because math, yeah, it's my least favorite, but math. Um, it explains why the situation has less cushion than you know, it might appear, because you you would think, oh, you know, it's not doing too bad. Ending stocks are the amount of wheat that is left over at the end of the marketing year, the buffer that sits between production shortfalls, you know, and um actual supply problems. The USDA is now forecasting U.S. wheat ending stocks for 26-27 at 762 million bushels. Last year's projection was 935 million bushels, and the year before that was 855 million. That buffer is shrinking, meaningfully shrinking. And a shrinking buffer means less protection if anything else goes wrong. Another drought year, export disruption, a spike in the demand, you know, the margin for error is getting thinner and thinner and thinner every single season. So now I'm going to try to make a connection that I think is missing from every financial news story about wheat futures right now. Because when you read that wheat hit $6.60 a bushel, that number means absolutely nothing to most households. None at all. We do not buy wheat futures. It's not on our menu. We buy bread that is on our menu. So I'm gonna I'm gonna build the bridge here to show you, you know, what this is impacting. Wheat is the primary ingredient in every loaf of bread, every bag of flour in your pantry, every box of pasta, every cereal for the most part, uh, every cracker, every cookie, every cake mix, every pizza dough, every tortilla, every pancake mix, every single dinner roll. Think about how much of that is in your kitchen. When the prices of wheat at the farm level rises 27% in a year, those price increases work their way through the milling process and then through the manufacturing process and then through the distribution and eventually arrive on the shelf. And it's not 25, it's not a 27% increase uh in your bread price. That's not what it is. There are many inputs besides the wheat in a loaf of bread, including labor, packaging, transportation, energy, but the direction is the same, it's all going up. Farm level prices rise and consumer prices follow. That it has no choice. So the USDA itself is already forecasting farm level wheat prices to increase 8.4% in 2026. That's at the farm level, okay? That forecast was set before this week's report or last week's report, which which came in you know much worse than traders expected. The actual number could actually be higher, and that's something that we have to watch for. Now, some of you are gonna say the prices haven't risen at the store, and you would be absolutely correct, they have not, because there's always a lag. There is always a lag. We're talking about the 26-27 marketing season. Okay, so there's always gonna be a lag. You are not going to see the impact immediately. Do you know what that means? That means you have another window that is only going to be open for a you know certain amount of time, so you can try to make decisions to act or not act, and this is where we're at. So honestly, you know, when it comes to the timing, I think this is where preparedness information can sometimes tip into sensationalism. And you know, we're all about the the doom and the gloom and getting people to click, right? Your bread is not going to double in price next week, it does is not that way. That's not how it works through the system. This is not how commodity markets flow through retail grocery shelves. So the realistic timeline on this, because like I said, it's going to be another window of opportunity for us to get better prepared. Okay. And the wheat being damaged and not planted right now will either be harvested or not harvested this summer. So millers then purchase that wheat and begin processing it. Manufacturers then formulate products, distribution then moves them to stores. The full flow from farm to shelf typically takes three to six months. Sometimes longer. You know, it depends on existing inventory and contracts that mills and manufacturers already have locked in. But the rough window is three to six months. What that means practically for all of us, the production shortfall being reported right now is what your grocery store will feel most acutely in the fall and winter of this year, 2026. That is when we're going to start seeing it, just like you know, everything else. Right at the same time that the beef prices are expected to hit peak, uh, you know, because of all the grilling season, where the tariff lag on imported goods is arriving, where the domestic growing season ends and we shift to expensive imports for fresh produce. It's all perfect storm. It's a perfect storm. This is literally not one problem, it's a convergence. It's just it's mind-boggling to think about. And wheat joins a list of categories that are all pointing in the same direction at the same time, and they're gonna hit that same window. And so that's what I need you to pay attention to. Just for context, okay, just a little bit of history. So um a real historical example of this that's not too abstract, not too far away. In February of 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, and Russia and Ukraine together accounted for nearly 30% of global wheat exports. The global wheat suddenly had a massive hole in it, super big. By the end by by early March uh 2022, within weeks of the invasion, the global wheat prices had jumped 55%. What happened to your grocery bill? Well, uh, we're eating it, you know. By mid-2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, flour prices in the U.S. were up 44.8% compared to the same time the previous year. The cost of bread rose 15.7%. Cereal and baked goods shot up 16.4%. Now, this is starting to explain a lot of the increases we've been watching over the past few years, right? Now, I'm not predicting a 45% spike in flour this year. Uh, the 2022 situation involved a very, you know, sudden, very sudden uh geopolitical shock. Nobody was really, you know, anticipating it, and it kind of hit all at once. What we are dealing with now is a domestic shock to a global supply that hit all at once. We, you know, for all of the people that are like, well, we should just use what we have at home. You're about to be severely limited by what we have at home. What we are dealing with now is a domestic production shortfall that has been building more gradually. You know, nobody's really some people are watching it, the people in the know are watching it, but the rest of us are like, yeah, it's not a big deal. It's not a big deal. It's a big deal. Guess what? You know, the price response is likely to be more measured, much more, because it's domestic. But at the end of the day, the direction's the same. And that's what we need to understand. The direction is still going to be the same, and it's not the direction that we want it to go. It's going to be going up. Farm prices are up, futures up, ending stocks are shrinking. Those forces flow in one direction. That's it. And history shows us exactly where they arrive. Now, James Doyle, he's an executive vice president at King Milling Company in Michigan, one of the largest flour millers in the country. And he said it plainly when discussing a previous wheat shortage. Consumers are going to see higher prices, no question about it. The price that we pay for wheat as the futures rise, whatever that price is at the time a baker calls, gets transplanted right then and there. Now, that quote is a few years old, uh, but the mechanism hasn't changed. None of the none of it has changed. Uh, mills buy wheat and the price goes up as they pay. And that cost literally gets translated to the bakery. The bakery translates it to the store, and the store translates it to you. Convenience has never costed as much as it does today, and it's going to cost a lot more tomorrow. I want to add something to the wheat story that makes the pasta aisle specifically worth paying close attention to right now. Very close attention to. We have been talking on this channel about, you know, the tariff impact on food prices, and one of the most dramatic uh tariff situations involves Italian pasta specifically. Uh, 13 of Italy's biggest pasta exporters currently face an anti-dumping duty of up to 91.74% on top of existing 15% uh base tariffs on EU food imports. The combined tariff rate on some Italian pasta products approaches 107%. That's how much somebody is taking in. Now, add a domestic wheat production shortfall on top of that, okay? U.S. pasta manufacturers use domestic wheat, primarily hard red spring wheat, which is also under pressure. Italian pasta manufacturers use Durham wheat and face tariff barriers getting their product to American shelves. Both sources of pasta are under simultaneous pressure, they're both getting hammered at the same time. The pasta aisle is gonna get squeezed hard from two different directions at once. And so it's not gonna matter whether it's imported or domestic. Either way, you're gonna be paying more. So if pasta is a staple in your household, and it's a staple in a lot of households because it stretches meals, you know, like casseroles. There are tons of casseroles that have pasta in them because it's a meal that's stretched, it means you can feed more theoretically for less. It's you know, most American families just eat a lot of pasta. And because it's affordable and it's shelf stable and it's extremely versatile, right? And this is the specific aisle where I would buy in depth right now, and that's if you don't make your own. There's always a way to make this better. So if you eat a lot of pasta, if your household consumes a lot of pasta, then now is the time to focus in hard because the prices are still good, they're still offering those 10 for 10 deals, right? Bring it home, empty the box into sealed mason jars, vacuum seal those jars, put it on a shelf, keep it cool, dark, and dry. That does not mean a basement. That means as cool as you can, no light hitting it, make sure no water gets to it. That is good for years. And at least three. At least three. I think the pasta on my shelf is about four years old right now, and it's tastes fine. It's it's absolutely fine and perfect because I vacuum sealed it and I keep it cool, dark, and dry, you know, so that's something to consider. Right now, you will get the most bang for your buck stocking up in your pasta aisle. Now, the part, you know, that's one solution, but now I've got another part. Um, because wheat feeds more than just humans, because it's also the livestock connection. Yeah. There's one more layer that I think is absolutely worth understanding, especially for those of you who have been following the beef and the protein situation that we have been talking about for the last few weeks. Wheat is not just food for people. Wheat and wheat byproducts are also a component of livestock feed. When wheat supply tightens, prices go up. Feed costs for cattle, poultry, and hog operations also face upward pressure. They also end up paying more, too. It is indirect, and corn is a much larger feed component than wheat for most livestock. But in a year where every input cost is already elevated, fuel, fertilizer, labor, adding feed cost pressure on top of an already stressed cattle supply is another weight on the scale going in the direction we don't want. The same drought, the same exact drought that is killing wheat crops in Kansas is also affecting pasture conditions for cattle ranchers in those same states. Drought does not just reduce one crop, it does not just impact one thing. Stresses the entire agricultural region at the same time. I am not saying wheat prices are going to drive beef prices significantly higher than they already are. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that the condition producing the wheat shortage and the conditions that have produced the beef shortage are share a root cause. They both come from the same root cause. And that's drought in the southern plains and the cascading effects reduced agricultural output across the entire region. The entire region is being impacted. So it's not just one thing, it's the culmination of the entire fan oscillating really quick, you know? Now the Strait of Hormuz has to be factored in here too. One more piece of context that came up uh in the research that I did for this particular video, and it connects to something I mentioned, you know, last week about energy costs. Part of what pushed wheat prices to their current levels is not just domestic production, it's also the global supply uncertainty because it's not all about us, it's the whole world, okay? The fragile situation around the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping line for global energy and commodity transport, has added volatility to energy markets, which flows directly into transportation costs for every single commodity, including grain. Moving wheat from Kansas farms to ports, loading it onto ships, shipping it internationally, all of that runs on diesel. When energy market uncertainty rises, transportation costs rise, commodity prices feel it. And when the commodity prices feel it, you know, stuff rolls downhill. This is not the primary driver of the current wheat situation, but it is one of several factors all pushing in the same direction at the same time. So now that we know what the problem is, problems are, we are going to uh work on some solutions because I think that that is very important. We have to know what causes it so that we totally understand exactly how completely it's going to impact us, and then we need to look for solutions which are gonna be different for all of us, but I'm hoping to give you some ideas depending on you know the different things that you're dealing with. Uh, you should be able to utilize one or two of the solutions that I'm providing. So you know what the numbers say and you know why they matter, and that's important. Now we're gonna talk about what you actually do with this information because that's why you're here, right? I hope. I hope that's why you're here. Um, I want to give you specific, practical, uh, prioritized list of actions, not overwhelming. You know, I don't do overwhelm, and because you're not going to rectify this situation all at once. This is something you need to do over time. And if you can do it during this window of, you know, opportunity along with everything else. Like I said, I don't know of another time that had this forward-looking window where we know that we have, you know, four or five months to get caught up to build that buffer so that we're not in as much pain moving forward. So that's important. Um, just smart moves based on exactly what I just told you. We're gonna do that now. Action one, if you use commercially ground flour, buy flour now in volume, the volume that you can store properly. You cannot put, okay, I'm gonna say it again, you cannot put commercially ground flour and expect to use it in three or four years if it's outside of a freezer. It will go rancid. The last time I mentioned this, I had quite a few comments that said, yes, they opened it, and oh boy, it smells like paint thinner because it does. It becomes useless at that point. You have wasted time, you have wasted money, you have wasted food. So I don't tell you this, I don't tell you any of this, you know, for sensationalism. I'm I'm trying to tell you that this is the only way that it works, and I want you to be successful, and I don't want you to waste money because who's got it to waste at this point? So, all-purpose flour, bread flour, whole wheat flour goes, you know, bad faster. Whatever your household uses regularly, the wheat for the flour already on the store shelves was purchased before this week's numbers. That's what I want you to think about. So the flour sitting in your pantry right now was priced pre-shortage. Yeah. Um, the flour that you buy in the next few weeks is still priced on existing milk contracts and existing mill inventory. The flour you buy in the fall will reflect the market pricing that they're talking about this past week. Now it depends on how much you use. Okay, so a 50-pound bag of all-purpose flour stored in a sealed container will last in your freezer indefinitely. Freezer indefinitely, okay. So this is this is the shorter term solution that I have for you because if you use the flour, let's say you get a five-gallon bucket and you put a 25-pound bag of flour in there, okay? As long as you use that within a year, you're golden. And however many that you can use within a year, then that's how many you want to fill. Anything beyond that year, you want to look at putting it into a freezer, or you want to look at a different method for flour, quite seriously. Okay. So flour, commercially ground flour, whether it's wheat, whether it's rye, whether it's you know, just regular white flour, it all has a finite shelf life. And I I need you to remember that because I'm not gonna argue it. Well, I've had it on my shelf for 20 years, I don't care, whatever, you know. Then you eat it. But I'm telling you that if you want to be wise with your money and your decisions, that you need to use it within a year, two tops, and that's a hundred percent dependent on the conditions of where you live, how hot it is, how humid it is, all the other fun stuff. Okay. So go out and get yourself some flour. It doesn't cost very much right now, and fill a five-gallon bucket with a good secure lid, and then get into that bucket on the regular and use that flour. Fill your canister on your counter from that bucket, okay? Because that will be good for a year. Now, action number two is to stock up on pasta, like I just said, that aisle with the pasta. If you are pasta eaters, that aisle needs your attention hard over the next couple weeks. If you can stock it up and store it properly, remember bringing that box into the house automatically exposes you to the possibility that you're going to bring in hitchhikers, aka bugs. Okay, so get it out of the box. The box doesn't keep it, you know, uh fresh, it doesn't keep it from going stale, it doesn't keep it free from infestation or free from something getting, you know, to it like a mouse or whatnot. So you want to empty it in I empty it into mason jars, either the half gallon or the quart, whatever you've got, you know, and see vacuum seal it. It's just that simple. And then put it on a shelf out of the direct light, as cool as you possibly can, and it'll stay dry. You don't have to worry about moisture. So definitely stock up on your pasta if it's something that you eat a lot now, okay. Number three is to consider different um freeze-dried options, which I I I, you know, it's an option, it's not something that I necessarily do or promote, quite honestly. Um, just buy the pasta. Pasta is not brain surgery, it's not, so don't try to make it that. But if you feel better, you know, cooking pasta and then putting it in the freeze dryer and then putting it up, hey, then it's good for you know, super long time as long as you package it properly. But it's it's another option. It's just another option for you to consider if you want to. Am I gonna do it? No, I'm not. Action number four. If you bake your own bread or you know, anything like that regularly, consider getting a grain mill if you haven't. Now I'll have a link down below for the mill that I have and the mill that I recommend because I don't care if it looks pretty and wood-grained on my counter. Okay, I want it to function, and that's what this one does. It is all contained, it's the easiest mill that I have ever used. It keeps it contained. You don't have flour creating this great cloud as it spits out of a little spout on a wood-grained mill. Who cares? Seriously, it's a tool. So I'll put a link down below for that. When I tell you that they go in and out of stock pretty regularly, I'm not kidding. So if you're signed up for my newsletter, I try to let you know as soon as I can that they come, you know, when they come back in stock. Get familiar with using fresh grains, milling your own flour, because the grains will literally last forever if you don't get them wet, if you keep them out of, you know, the direct sunlight, if you, you know, same as everything else, okay? But I can buy 50 pounds of wheat and put that up and not worry about it. I can forget about it for five years if I want to, or you know, I can mill it as needed to make bread, or crackers, or pasta, or anything else. There are a plethora of different kinds of wheat out there. My personal favorites, okay, are Durham for making my homemade pasta. It is the the the hard, you know, the hard wheat, spring or winter. It is the soft wheat, spring or winter, I don't care. And though those are my favorite. I also like spelt flour a lot. So those are the ones that I stock up on. Now I have buckets and buckets of wheat. And I'm gonna tell you a couple of secrets about where I get them as we move forward so that you can make decisions about what works best for you. Okay, but the easiest thing if you are a baker is to buy a mill and make your own bread. To buy a mill and make your own tortillas, your own pasta, your own crackers, all of that stuff. And get a get a good homemade recipe for a cake mix. You don't need to make it out of a box. You know, you might you may not know this, but you can make it without a box. Yes, you can. It's the stuff that we have been programmed to believe is saving us time and uh incidentally filling our body with chemicals. It's it's what they wanted to do, you know. So take that conspiracy theory and run with it. But with a grain mill and buying your own grains now, you are ahead of the game huge. Somebody asked me a very valid question, and they asked me what is the conversion of wheat into flour, and it will depend largely, you know, depend, but for every cup of wheat, and I'm just doing basic, you know, cups, for every cup of wheat, you can expect about a cup and a quarter to a cup and a half of flour. I don't know why it works that way, but it does, okay? And after that, I will refer you over to two different channels. Be sure to tell them Sutton's Day sent you. One of them is Grits and Grain, and she is very good uh with all the different grains and learning how to make bread. And then the other one is Becker's or Brecker's. I'll find the link and I'll put it down below. But um, you know, those two channels I think will serve you well on your you know, fresh milled grain journey, and you will you'll learn to love it. You'll love to learn the independence and the the actual taste of wheat. It's great. So, number five, we're gonna jump over to that. Um, check the staples on your current pantry shelf and identify what is thin. So if you already have 400 boxes of pasta, don't go get 400 more. You know what I mean? Don't create a problem where there shouldn't be one. But you want to look, you know, the problem is things like crackers don't last very long because they have an oil in them. Pasta does last long because it doesn't have an oil in it. Cereal has a ton of sugar, but it still doesn't last as long as you would think. It's not a forever thing, so watch your expiration dates and your baking supplies. Now you can make your own baking powder. I hear there's you know stuff all over the internet for it, but you want to look at your baking supplies to see how that will be impacted too. Is there a wheat-based staple that you use regularly? And I'm not just talking whole wheat, I mean anything wheat, you know. So whether it's commercially or not, uh, is there something that you know you have a fondness for that you have less of less than a month's worth in your house? Because that is where you start. That is exactly where you start. One category, one purchase, build it from there. We have this window of time. Make the best of that window of time because it won't be back. This is not gonna come back. Now, I I want to bring it back down. Okay, the two places that I buy wheat from, these are my two favorite places because of A, the variety, and B, the quality. So Peluse brand is in the Pacific Northwest, and I love their products. Now, what I especially love about their products is that you can order it in different quantities, but they actually have 25-pound buckets. You know what that means? That means that I don't have to recant a bag of grain into my own bucket. It's done, it's sealed, it shows up at your door in a box. You take it out of the box and you stack it, okay? And it's already marked, so you don't even have to do that. On probably a good idea to put a date, but other than that, you're done. And I love that about Palouse, one of my all-time favorite things. So they have all the different ones. I'll put the link down below, and the other one is Azure Standard. So look, go to the link down below, see if they have a drop near you. Um, and if they do, then you can purchase and it'll come to that drop. There's a whole thing with it, it explains it really good on the website. They also have wonderful quality grains, they have a large selection. It does not come in a bucket, so you will have to recant it. Um, but you do have to go to the drop to pick it up. Palouse sends it right to your front door. It's awesome. Now, again, you know, with my link, there's a discount uh for the Palouse with Azure. It's just see if there's a drop near you. And if there is, you can sign up, you can order, find out the date that they're gonna, you know, they'll they'll announce when you can stop ordering for the next drop, and then you have to make plans to be at that drop when the truck comes. Those are my two sources for grains. Absolutely love both of them. Absolutely love both of them. But I will admit that I have a heartfelt fondness for Palouse brand because it's pretty much it's a woman-run company, you know, they're doing their due, quality product, they are, you know, kicking butt and taking names, and I am super supportive of them. And the fact that it shows up to my door, it's one less thing that I have to do. And for that, I'm the happiest person around. And it's not just uh grain, you know, or it's not just wheat in the buckets, they also have barley and I don't know, a couple other things. So check out their website, links down below. The birds are out, it's a beautiful day. So I want to close the same way that I always try to do, right? Uh when I cover a heavy topic like this, because it seems like uh we're doing that a lot lately. The USDA numbers came in last week on the 13th, and they're real. The drought conditions in the southern plains are real. The 54-year production low forecast is real. The 107-year acreage, you know, uh shortfall low is real. Absolutely, they're all real. I did not make a single word of this up. None of it is speculation, it is the federal government's own data, and I'm just sharing it with you. It was released just a few days ago. I want to be really clear about what I am and am not saying here. I need you to really understand what I am not saying here. Am and am not saying here. I am not saying that bread is going to double in price next month. No, that's not the case. I am not saying that flour shelves will be empty. No, that's not the case. I am not telling you to panic by. I am telling you that there is a documented sourced current production shortfall in one of the most foundational crops in the American food supply. That's what I'm telling you. The price signal is already moving. That needle is starting to tick, okay? The historical pattern is clear about where this ends up at the grocery store level. It's crystal clear. And the window between now, like literally right now, and when the price signal fully arrives at your grocery store receipt, potentially, if you can afford it, is the preparation window. We are in that preparation window, okay? We have four to five months in order to be like as on top of this as humanly possible. If you're watching this video in May of 2026, you're in the window. You have time to act calmly, not panic by that serves nobody and wastes a lot of money. You have time to be thoughtful and and sensible about the entire thing. A few extra bags of flour to use up in the next year, okay? Uh a few extra boxes of pasta if it's something that you consume, you know, enough of. The these are not extreme measures. And that's what I need you to understand. These are not extreme measures. You are just pre-stocking foods that you know that you're going to eat. And that is what we're about. That is stocking your pantry. That is pantry preparedness at its finest. These are intelligent measured responses to real information. And that's what I need you to do. I need you to make intelligent, measured responses, not panic purchasing, because that serves nobody except the people selling it to you. Okay. That's what this channel is all about. That's what it's always been about. It's not about fear, it's not about doom and gloom. It's accurate information followed up with actionable steps. Remember, you can check out Azure Standard and Palouse Brand in the description box below. And also the grain mill. I'll have that listed down below. Also, if you sign up for my newsletter, I let you know whenever there's sales and stuff going on. And until next time, everybody, take a deep breath. Take a deep breath because I don't think we're done yet. I really don't. But we'll make it through this just like we have everything else because we're prepared. Until next time, everybody, be safe. Keep stacking it to the rafters, my friends.