A July 10 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected 196 million bushels for the Kansas winter wheat harvest, down from nearly 347 million last year, said Dan O’Brien, agricultural economist and Kansas State University professor. Nationally, winter wheat production is expected to be 471 million bushels, O’Brien said, compared with last year’s 804 million. Kansas farmers were affected primarily by drought, and there were also freezes early in the season that damaged crops, a weather pattern that Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, said he expects to see for a long time. The European Union also is suffering after dry weather, frost, storms and hail and has made “soft wheat forecasts,” O’Brien said. The future remains uncertain for Kansas wheat farmers, O’Brien said.