Washington ? You have to go back to World War I to find a winter wheat crop as meager as this year’s.

Farmers have been cutting back on wheat for several years in favor for other, more profitable crops. Now, with drought gripping parts of the Great Plains, this year’s harvest is forecast at 30.2 million acres, the lowest since 1917, the government said Friday.

“If we get favorable weather, we could raise a fair crop. If we get no moisture and we get high temperatures, the heads will be basically empty,” said John Thaemert, president of the Kansas Association of Wheat Growers.

The small crop doesn’t mean that farmers will get higher prices or that consumers will pay more for food. While declining production often increases commodity prices, the Agriculture Department is projecting the lowest exports in 30 years. Only about half of U.S. wheat is consumed domestically.

Many farmers will let cattle graze the crop rather than harvest it. By the last week of April, crop conditions were the poorest they had been for any corresponding period since 1989, the Agriculture Department said.

Even with the smaller acreage, farmers still are producing far more winter wheat than they did in 1917.

With an average yield of less than 15 bushels per acre, total production that year was less than 390 million bushels. Even with the drought, production this year is expected to be 1.3 billion bushels, the Agriculture Department said in its monthly survey of crop conditions.

The nation’s wheat acreage has been falling steadily since enactment of the 1996 Freedom to Farm law, which encouraged farmers to switch to crops such as soybeans and corn that offered better prices or higher subsidies.

But dry weather also is taking a toll.

Farmers are expected to harvest about 43 bushels per acre, down from nearly 48 bushels in 1999.

In Kansas, usually the nation’s No. 1 wheat producer, just 25 percent of the crop was rated good to excellent at the end of April and the average yield is expected to dip to 37 bushels an acre. In Texas, 24 percent was considered good to excellent, and in Oklahoma, 34 percent.

The department estimates prices will range from $2.50 to $3.10 a bushel, compared to $2.78 for last year’s crop.