Market and Farm Policy Outlook: Wheat Backgrounder

In the United States, wheat ranks third in planted acreage, production, and cash receipts among field crops, following corn and soybeans. U.S. wheat planted acreage and production have declined since the early 1980s due to several factors, including declining U.S. domestic per capita wheat consumption, greater competition to U.S. exports, and stronger relative profitability for planting alternative crops such as corn and soybeans. Despite this reduction, the U.S. remains a major global wheat producer and exporter. U.S. wheat producers can utilize a variety of risk management policy tools for their operations, which are largely authorized in Title I and Title XI of U.S. Farm Bills. Specifically, Farm Bill Title I includes programs like Price Loss Coverage (PLC) and Agriculture Risk Coverage (ARC), which provide direct government payments in times of low prices or revenues. Marketing assistance loans (MALs) support producers with working capital and potential government payments. Title XI focuses on changes to crop insurance, which protects against yield or revenue declines, and through which producers benefit from subsidized premiums. With crop prices on a downward trend in recent years, there has been a renewed focus on existing programs and discussions on potential changes to policy design or parameters for these programs. The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA; Pub. L. 119-21) included provisions increasing commodity support levels through PLC, ARC, MALs, and crop insurance subsidies and coverage levels, as well as increasing base acres up to a certain limit, and reauthorized these Farm Bill programs through 2031. This report outlines U.S. wheat market developments, highlights legislative programs (Titles I and XI) from the 2018 Farm Bill and subsequent updates contained in OBBBA, and reviews trends in Government payments to wheat producers.