AGRICULTURE

Poor U.S. Wheat Harvest to Drain World Supplies: The Agriculture Department sharply lowered its estimate of the nation’s winter wheat harvest and said overall wheat production would be the lowest since 1991 because of weather damage to the crop. Forecast production of winter wheat, the main wheat crop, fell to 1.53 billion bushels, down 5% from the June forecast and 8% from last year. The decline caused the USDA to project short grain supplies, meaning higher global prices and a strain on poor countries’ food budgets. Noting lower projected harvests in China and Canada, the department said global wheat supplies should drop to a 20-year low of 107 million metric tons coming into next year’s harvest.