Orville Williams has grown wheat on his 2,600-acre farm in Montezuma, Kansas, every year since he was a teenager. At 76, he has outlasted droughts, recessions, and seasons that tested his patience — but never his faith in the land.
This year feels different.
“All in all, it’s not going to be a good year,” Williams said. Kansas, long one of the country’s most vital wheat-producing states, is heading into a harvest that many farmers say is unlike anything they’ve seen in their lifetimes.
A season unlike any other
Orville Williams is not a man given to alarm. Across more than five decades farming the flat, wind-scoured plains of southwest Kansas, he has watched drought years come and go and kept planting. This year brought something harder to absorb: record-setting drought combined with above-average temperatures, unseasonable winter heat spikes, and late freezes that arrived precisely when the crop was most exposed — a convergence that even veteran farmers say they’ve rarely encountered all at once.
“It’s kind of a double whammy,” Williams said.
Wheat, for farmers like Williams, isn’t simply a commodity. It’s the organizing principle of an entire life — the rhythm of planting and harvest, the logic behind every land purchase and equipment decision. When that foundation cracks, the uncertainty reaches well beyond a single year’s income. Families built around farming absorb losses differently than businesses do; the calculus is personal in ways that balance sheets don’t capture.
Numbers that tell a grim story
The data are stark. The USDA projects U.S. wheat production at 1.56 billion bushels in 2025 — down 21% from the prior year and the smallest crop since 1972. As of mid-May, 58% of Kansas wheat was rated “poor” or “very poor,” a level matched only five times in the past four decades.
By early May, 86% of Kansas wheat had already produced a seed head, against a 10-year average of 61%. USDA meteorologist Brad Rippey explained that the plant is “genetically programmed” to produce a head before dying. Nationally, harvested acreage came in at just 22 million acres, with abandonment rates exceeding 32%. Williams, who saw close to 100 bushels per acre on irrigated land last year, expects 30 to 40 this season.
When drought meets disease and rising costs
Drought hasn’t arrived alone. Dry conditions have accelerated the spread of wheat streak mosaic virus and barley yellow dwarf virus, both of which further cut into yield potential. Input costs have climbed at the same time — urea fertilizer that once ran $400 a ton now costs $600 to $700, and diesel is up nearly $2 per gallon from a year ago. Williams drives 150 to 200 miles a day across his operation, absorbing that increase on every trip.
Kansas State agronomist Romulo Lollato is direct about what this means beyond the farm gate. The pain reaches consumers through higher bread prices and erodes U.S. competitiveness in international wheat markets. Smaller harvests ripple outward in ways that take time to fully register at the grocery store.
Climate change and a long downward trend
This season’s difficulties don’t exist in isolation. Rippey points to a clear downward trend in Great Plains wheat acreage, with worsening weather over the past two decades among the most significant drivers. Climate change, fueled by the burning of fossil fuels, has made farming increasingly difficult. Farmers describe more intense heat, erratic freezes, and persistent rainfall deficits that grow harder to plan around each year. Forecasters warn that an expected El Niño pattern this summer could bring warmer-than-normal temperatures, meaning meaningful drought relief may still be months away.
Few options, uncertain futures
For farmers trying to find a way through, the options are limited. Crop insurance provides some cushion, and the Trump administration has offered one-time bridge payments for qualifying growers — but neither addresses the full scope of losses. Agricultural consultant and fifth-generation farmer Ben Palen is candid. “It’s a little late now to try to plant something on a wheat crop that’s failed,” he said. “We just don’t have soil moisture to get another crop started.”
Mike Nickelson, a wheat and corn farmer in western Kansas, puts the emotional weight alongside the financial one. “My son is here farming with me and I’d really like to transition him to help take over the farm,” he said. “I’m like, really, do I want him to have to do this?” It’s a question that speaks to something deeper than crop yields — the viability of a way of life passed down through generations.
Williams has settled into quiet resolve. “Stay the course,” he said. “Don’t make any new purchases. Forget your wants and just do your needs.”