Pasta May Surge as North Dakota Floods Boost Campbell Costs
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Unrelenting rainfall may have slashed U.S. planting of durum wheat to the lowest level in more than 50 years, fueling a surge in the price of pasta and noodles as mills scramble for supply of the grain.
Farmers who normally are finished planting by now had completed just 44 percent as of June 19 in North Dakota, which produces more than two-thirds of U.S. durum, government data show. It’s too late to sow more without delaying the harvest to the winter-frost period, said Frayne Olson, an agricultural economist at North Dakota State University in Fargo.