Every year the government pays farmers NOT to produce. If we put all of that land into tillage, I think we could take over from Russia as the number one wheat supplier. (There are five total grains, but I don’t think Russia is number one in all of them.)
Russia has already banned exports in order to feed their own people, so the sanctions won’t affect that anyway.
Ukrain is the number five wheat supplier and there has been no planting in Ukraine this year.
Fertilizer is another problem.
As is Ukraine being totally off line.
US cannot make all that up.
The American farmland in the Conservation Reserve Program is minimally productive and does help water quality and such. It is limited to around 25 million acres of well over 900 million acres of farmland.
CRP ground isn’t fertilized each year. That means 1st year crops like corn will take much more nitrogen fertilizer than normal to make up the difference.
Also CRP ground will typically be considered Highly Erodible; a low residue crops like soybeans would need to be no-tilled. No-till needs additional herbicides which are also in limited supply this year.
CRP ground also is typically in drought prone areas. There is a moderate/severe drought currently going on across most of the Plain States.
The best the US could do at this stage is open up CRP for grazing and haying. Bringing in millions of acres takes time and supplies, neither of which we currently have. Planting across most of the US is going to be well under way by mid April.
Every year the government pays farmers NOT to produce. If we put all of that land into tillage,
The ground has just begun to thaw so they wouldn’t have time to plant anything just yet but there probably won’t be much planting because of the war damage.