You are here: / / Wheat Letter Blog
thumbnail
,

Commitment to Education Continues to Add Value to U.S. Wheat Imports

By Catherine Miller, USW Program and Planning Coordinator

U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) believes customer engagement, supply chain transparency and accessible global market information are the building blocks for robust relationships with U.S. wheat customers.

USW often partners with organizations that offer a variety of short courses related to the global wheat supply chain and processing industries, providing the opportunity for customer engagement and education. These partners include Northern Crops Institute (NCI) at North Dakota State University (NDSU) in Fargo, N.D., IGP Institute at Kansas State University (KSU) in Manhattan, K.S., and Wheat Marketing Center (WMC) in Portland, Oregon.

In 2019, USW sponsored 81 participants from Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe at eight short courses and four workshops at IGP, NCI and WMC.

USW Market Analyst with NCI’s Brian Sorenson during the 2019 Grain Procurement short course. Read more about this course here: https://bit.ly/2kGGM7a 

In addition, USW staff and consulting experts who may be associated with the educational partner organizations, conduct such courses or workshops. Funding for the educational service is provided primarily by export market development programs directed by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

Wherever they are held, these courses are focused on helping customers better understand the U.S. grain marketing system from farm to port, U.S. wheat classes and risk management needed to ensure future purchases provide the best value. With the different courses offered, USW can serve participants from such diverse backgrounds as millers, bakers, end-product manufacturers and buyers.

A core educational program that USW offers is the “Contracting for Value Workshop.” It is designed to help customers gain greater knowledge of supply chain management challenges and opportunities to write tenders for U.S. wheat that will yield the greatest return on their investment.

While this workshop is typically hosted at one of the U.S. educational organizations, this year USW’s team in the Mexico, Central America and Caribbean Region decided to hold workshops in Mexico City and Chihuahua, Mexico. Agricultural Economics Professor Frayne Olson of North Dakota State University, who supports short courses held at NCI, joined USW staff to conduct the workshops in October 2019.

USW Vice President Steve Wirsching presenting in Chihuahua, Mexico

“By doing the workshops in-country, USW staff and consultants could meet with the entire management teams at two different mills in a week,” said Stephanie Bryant-Erdmann, USW Assistant Regional Director. “Having the general managers and owners as well as the production, storage, quality and purchasing staff all together was invaluable because while they were learning about U.S. wheat quality, we also could see consensus being built on the specifications as the teams identified the wheat characteristics that had the most value for them.”

This commitment to customer service before and after U.S. wheat is imported is one of the unique legacies represented by USW’s partnership with farmers, the U.S. government, state wheat commissions and our educational partner organizations.

Header Photo Caption: Contracting for Value Workshop in Chihuahua, Mexico

2019 Contracting for Wheat Value team from China in Montana.

NCI Pasta Production and Tech Course

Philippine-Korean Bakery Workshop at the Wheat Marketing Center.

 

2019 Grain Purchasing short course at the IGP Institute.

/by
thumbnail

Wheat Industry News

Recent news and highlights from around the wheat industry.

Speaking of Wheat: “This solution to a long-standing problem is a result of the Administration’s advocacy for American farmers and will allow our wheat exporters to compete on a level playing field. We look forward to increased exports of American wheat to Brazil.” – U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer announcing Brazil’s intention to implement an annual duty-free tariff rate quota (TRQ) of 750,000 metric tons of wheat imports from outside the South American trading bloc. Read more at https://bit.ly/2XbvC9e.

Connecting with Customers and Farmers. November is a busy time for wheat and flour industry meetings around the world. U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) representatives have started the last legs of the 2019 Crop Quality Seminars in North Asia following several seminars in the Middle East, South Asia, Europe and Africa earlier this month. The annual meeting of the Latin American Millers Association (ALIM) is underway in Mexico this week and many USW staff, farmer directors and state representatives have tickets to Japan to participate in a USW sponsored Buyers Conference there. In addition, USW and the National Association of Wheat Growers are participating in the Tri-State Wheat Growers Conference with farmers from the Pacific Northwest states this week in Spokane, Wash.

2019 National Wheat Yield Contest. The National Wheat Foundation’s National Wheat Yield Contest offers growers the opportunity to compete with farmers from across the United States and improve their production practices through new and innovative techniques. Earlier this week, NWF announced the national winners for the 2019 National Wheat Yield Contest. Read the full release here.

National Wheat Foundation Scholarship Applications are due by Dec. 1, 2019. The Jerry Minore Scholarship is awarded to deserving high school or college students pursuing a career in agriculture for the 2019/2020 academic year. This year the Foundation will be issuing two scholarships for $2,500 each.

Registration for 2020 Agricultural Outlook Forum. USDA has opened registration for the 96th annual Agricultural Outlook Forum (AOF) on Feb. 20 to 21, 2020, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Va. “The Innovation Imperative: Shaping the Future of Agriculture” sessions will focus on innovations in agriculture, global trade trends, food loss and waste, frontiers in conservation, and the science of food safety. More information will be released in November. USW is a cooperator with USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

Wheat-based Ingredients Offer Nutritional and Functional Benefits. That was a positive headline for an article in “Supermarket Perimeter” promoting the value of defatted wheat germ in many different products. The article notes that food formulators are exploring ways for other wheat-based ingredients than flour to help them create products for today’s trends – germ, bran, fiber and protein. Read the article online at https://bit.ly/2QhBJHp.

Subscribe to USW Reports. USW publishes a variety of reports and content that are available to subscribe to, including a bi-weekly newsletter highlighting recent Wheat Letter blog posts, the weekly Price Report and the weekly Harvest Report (available May to October). Subscribe here.

Follow USW Online. Visit our page at https://www.facebook.com/uswheat for the latest updates, photos and discussions of what is going on in the world of wheat. Also, find breaking news on Twitter at www.twitter.com/uswheatassoc and video stories at https://www.youtube.com/uswheatassociates.

 

 

/by
thumbnail
,

USW Market Analyst Attends Crop Quality Seminars and Annual IAOM Conference

By Claire Hutchins, USW Market Analyst

Every year, U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) hosts educational seminars around the world to engage with overseas customers and share information on the unique quality and marketing characteristics of that’s year’s U.S. wheat harvest. In early November, I had the opportunity to join my USW colleagues for the first time in Dubai, U.A.E. and Cairo, Egypt for two crop quality seminars and the 30th anniversary celebration of the International Association of Operative Millers (IAOM). These events were substantially different, but equally important opportunities to engage with U.S. wheat customers around the world.

Crop quality seminars give customers an in-depth look at the quality of each class of U.S. wheat following that year’s harvest and an overview of broad supply and demand conditions affecting global wheat markets. Led by USW milling, baking and marketing specialists, as well as outside consultants, these seminars feature presentations not only detailing the growing conditions for each U.S. wheat class, but each class’s grading characteristics, flour testing results and baking data. Topics also range from competitor production highlights to foreign policy issues affecting international trade.

At the seminars that I attended, USW’s Ian Flagg, Regional Vice President, European, Middle Eastern and North African Regions’ Chad Weigand, Assistant Regional Director, Sub-Sahara African Region; and Tarik Gahi, Milling and Baking Technologist, Middle Eastern, East and Northern African Region; lead the crop quality, global supply and demand and marketing presentations. I had the opportunity to present “Understanding the USW Price Report and Basis,” an intuitive, how-to-read exploration of the USW Price Report we publish each week. Navigating U.S. export markets and making purchasing decisions is a complicated, risk-involved process and USW wants its customers to have as much information as possible for all wheat buying decisions.

USW Market Analyst, Claire Hutchins, presents on USW’s weekly Price Report at a 2019 crop quality seminar in Cairo, Egypt.

USW believes in complete supply chain transparency and hosts these crop quality seminars to educate buyers on the quality, end use versatility, and value of U.S. wheat. The USW Price Report adds to the philosophy of supply chain transparency because it gives the world’s buyers an independently derived baseline of export prices for U.S. wheat by class, protein level, export region and delivery month.

From these crop quality seminars, I learned how to better explain the distinct challenges and opportunities for buyers contracting for wheat value following this year’s harvest. USW tries to make the vast array of quality and pricing information accessible and intuitive to buyers and I am proud to be involved in these efforts.

The IAOM conference for the Middle East and Africa region in Dubai gave me the unique opportunity to interact with a global array of millers, bakers, technology specialists and grain traders. USW was instrumental in helping found IAOM in the Middle East in 1989 when the organization, a handful of millers and several industry specialists came together to create a professional and educational space to interact every year. Today, IAOM boasts over 1,000 members from all over the world and from all corners of the grain trading, storing, shipping, milling, processing and baking industries.

The conference gives members the opportunity to network, build relationships and learn about new topics critical to the wheat milling industry. USW is also an educational sponsor, providing funding and staff speakers at most IAOM conferences. This year, Ian Flagg presented on U.S. supply and marketing conditions while Tarik Gahi moderated a panel of topics varying from grain storage to technologies for flour and whole flour production to general innovations in flour milling. USW also sponsored a booth at the event which allowed customers and colleagues to ask USW staff about technical trends in milling and lab studies, global marketing conditions, how to communicate with U.S. grain traders and U.S. wheat supply and quality characteristics.

USW’s Europe and MENA Regional Vice President, Ian Flagg, presents on U.S. supply and demand conditions affecting global markets at the 30th annual IAOM Middle East and Africa conference in Dubai, U.A.E.

The IAOM conference, like the crop quality seminars, gave me an excellent look into USW’s role as a trade servicing organization for overseas customers. USW believes in supply chain transparency and creates every opportunity it can to educate buyers about the quality, versatility and value of U.S. wheat.

Staff from USW’s Rotterdam, Cape Town, and Casablanca offices ready to engage with customers and industry specialists at the 2019 IAOM Middle East and Africa conference in Dubai, U.A.E.

View the latest USW Price Report here and subscribe here to receive the USW Price Report via email every Friday.

/by
thumbnail
, , , ,

USW Submits Trade Barriers Report with Additional Detail on China and India

By Dalton Henry, USW Vice President of Policy

Each year, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) compiles and publishes the National Trade Estimates (NTE) report — a comprehensive report detailing barriers that U.S. exporters, including wheat farmers, face in markets around the world.

The first step in compiling the massive report (last year’s came in at 537 pages), is to collect feedback from the export stakeholders. U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) participates in this process each year by consulting with our offices overseas, talking to customers and researching trade barriers. That work culminated last week when USW submitted to USTR its compiled information, covering barriers in a dozen wheat importing countries.

Each year, many of the challenges highlighted in USW’s submission are issues that remain unresolved. This year, however, USW’s reports about on-going concerns with China and India were substantially changed.

The new report on barriers in China reflect the progress made since last year to bring China’s wheat import tariff rate quota (TRQ) and wheat subsidy policies into compliance with the government’s WTO commitments. This year’s report reflects the progress made in those areas as a result of the two WTO cases the United States won last spring, and China’s initial policy proposals to address those WTO rulings.

While the report shows some progress in the China section, it highlights a growing area of concern in India. India runs subsidy programs very similar to China, including minimum purchase prices and input subsidies. USW and USTR have demonstrated previously that India is well outside of its WTO limits in the level of government subsidies. Those subsidies have spurred excess production and subsequent wheat stocks that, once at a critical mass, India must subsidize to dump onto the world market. USDA projects that Indian wheat ending stocks will exceed 20 million metric tons (MMT) for 2019/20 — a level that historical data shows will likely result in India resuming wheat exports in the near future.

USW’s most recent NTE report can be found online here. It provides an overview of the key issues that USW works on every year and supplies USTR with up-to-date information on ongoing problems in wheat trade. In doing so, it fills a vital role in the enforcement of trade rules, something that U.S. farmers and their customers overseas want to see more than ever.

/by
thumbnail
, ,

Expanded Trade Delegation Effort Connects Buyers, Farmers and U.S. Wheat Organizations

By Catherine Miller, USW Program and Planning Coordinator

One of the most important types of activities U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) overseas representatives conduct is trade service. In other words, they help their customers understand how to get the most value as possible from their U.S. wheat purchases. A crucial part of trade service is giving many of those customers the chance to experience the U.S. wheat supply system first hand.

Each year, USW brings several delegations of international wheat buyers and end-product processors to the United States. These trade delegations help forge a direct connection for customers with farmers, state wheat leaders and industry organizations. In many ways, these visits represent the legacy of commitment from farmers, state wheat commissions, USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service of USDA and USW to demonstrate the dependability of the people who produce and handle the reliable supply of U.S. wheat.

In 2019, the number of USW hosted trade delegates doubled from the previous year, with a total of 18 delegations. Almost 100 customers from around the world visited 14 states.

One delegation from Brazil, for example, was the first trade team from South America to focus exclusively on the technical staff from major mills. The participants were chosen because they have significant input on buying decisions and wheat classes used by their respective mills. They visited farmers and industry representatives in Ohio and Kansas, reflecting their interest in soft red winter (SRW) and hard red winter (HRW). The photo at the top of this page was taken as the delegation visited the Stover Farm in Shelby, Ohio. The timing of the delegation in June was ideal because in March, Brazil’s government had announced it would work toward opening a tariff rate quota to allow a significant volume of wheat to be imported from outside the South American Mercosur trade agreement.

U.S. wheat farmers benefit directly from USW helping customers around the world succeed in growing the profitability and consumer appeal of their flour and wheat foods products. That starts with activities like trade delegations demonstrating that, despite obvious differences, the people who grow, move and sell U.S. wheat share values of growth, hard work and family with the people who import, mill and process it.

/by
thumbnail

Researchers Create Method to Identify Drought-Resilient Wheat

Originally published Oct. 30, 2019, in “World Grain” by Susan Reidy. Editor’s Note: U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) supports advanced breeding methods such as the work described here from Australia as beneficial to farmers and international wheat buyers. Photo above: Arun Yadav from the Research School of Biology and ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology at Australian National University (ANU). Photo by Lannon Harley, ANU.

Australian researchers have developed a new method to identify drought-resilient wheat quickly, cheaply and accurately.

Work by the scientists from The Australian National University (ANU), ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology, and CSIRO Agriculture and Food could help breeders develop more drought-resilient crops that can produce more food and more profit with less water.

“Our work may be instrumental for farmers to maximize food production in the face of increasingly severe drought,” said Arun Yadav from the Research School of Biology and ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology at ANU.

Yadav and the other lead researcher Adam Carroll said selecting wheat that can grow better during short- to medium-term drought is vital to help fight food insecurity around the world.

“Hardy crop plants that can maintain high yields under drought will help farmers produce more food reliably and maintain domestic and export markets for Australia,” Yadav said. “Drought is a major agricultural challenge in Australia, affecting food production, farmers’ livelihoods and costing the government billions of dollars in relief efforts.”

The simple test measured the relative abundance of four amino acids in wheat plants to predict their ability to maintain yield under drought much more accurately than current methods, Carroll said.

“This test can be done precisely in greenhouses all year round, at a fraction of the cost of traditional field-based methods,” he said. “Plus, it gives more accurate predictions.”

Professor Barry Pogson, a 2019 Eureka Prize winner and deputy director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology at ANU, was also a member of the research team.

“If breeders are provided with 1,000 wheat varieties to choose from, they can select the drought resilient lines through a simple assessment of the four amino acids we’ve identified,” Pogson said. “The challenge is for us to show this technique does scale beyond the varieties we have tested to date.”

Greg Rebetzke and Gonzalo Estavillo from CSIRO Agriculture and Food conducted grain-yield evaluations under extensive field trials across the Australian wheat belt, which enabled the team to build a statistical model of the drought-tolerance predictor.

The study was funded by the Grains Research and Development Corporation, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology and the ARC Centre of Excellence in Translational Photosynthesis.

The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

/by
thumbnail
, ,

U.S. Commercial Export Sales Pace Ahead of 2018/19

Three and a half months into marketing year 2019/20, total U.S. export sales* as of Oct. 15 of 13.8 million metric tons (MMT), 14 percent ahead of last year’s pace. Sales to four of the top 10 U.S. wheat customers are ahead of last year’s pace. Export sales to Mexico, the top U.S. customer over a five-year period, are up 50 percent year-over-year at 2.09 MMT. Sales to Nigeria total 936,000 metric tons (MT), up sharply from the 569,000 MT sold this time last year. All U.S. wheat classes except hard red spring (HRS) and white wheat are ahead of last year’s pace. USDA projects 2019/20 U.S. wheat exports will rise to 25.9 MMT. If realized, this would be 1 percent higher than 2018/19.

HRW. USDA reported hard red winter (HRW) year-to-date exports at 5.13 MMT, 52 percent ahead of the 2018/19 HRW sales pace on the same date. Mexico is currently the number one HRW purchaser and HRW sales to Mexico are 54 percent ahead of last year’s pace. As of Oct. 10, HRW sales to Mexico totaled 1.27 MMT. Sales to Nigeria are more than double last year’s pace at 567,000 MT. Japanese HRW purchases total 488,000 MT, up 7 percent from 2018/19.

SRW. 2019/20 soft red winter (SRW) sales are up 14 percent year-over-year at 1.72 MMT. Sales to 4 out of 5 of the top buyers of U.S. SRW are ahead of last year’s pace. Year-to-date, Mexico has purchased 550,000 MT, 15 percent more than last year. Nigerian SRW purchases total 142,000 MT, 50 percent ahead of last year’s pace. Sales to other Latin American countries, including Trinidad and Tobago and Panama are also ahead of 2018/19 exports.

HRS sales of 3.77 MMT are only 1 percent behind the last year’s pace. As of Oct. 10, buyers in Taiwan purchased 353,000 MT, up 5 percent from 2018/19. Taiwan is the third-largest buyer of HRS. Sales to South Korea, the fourth-largest buyer of HRS, are up 10 percent from last year at 294,000 MT. Year-to-date sales to Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia, are behind last year’s pace. This time last year, there were no HRS sales to China. So far in 2019/20, the U.S. has sold 63,000 MT of HRS to China.

White. As of Oct. 11, exports of all white wheat (including soft white and hard white) are down 14 percent year-over-year at 2.62 MMT. Sales to 4 out of the top 5 customers of U.S. white wheat are down from last year. Sales to the Philippines, the largest customer of soft white (SW) wheat, are down 6 percent from 2018/19 at 660,000 MT.  SW food aid donations to Yemen are up 79 percent from this time last year at 231,000 MT. Minimal access to the Chinese market is also impacting SW sales. In 2017/18, China had purchased 271,000 MT of SW by this date.

It should be noted that the white sales to Nigeria of 123,000 MT are hard white (HW). USDA does not differentiate between the 2 classes on the Export Sales Report. HW sales to Nigeria in 2019/20 are 9 percent ahead of last year’s pace.

Durum. Year-to-date durum exports total 497,000 MT, up 59 percent from the same time last year. To date, the European Union (EU), Algeria and Nigeria are the top durum buyers. Year-to-date sales to the EU total 269,000 MT (9.88 million bushels), more than double last year’s pace. Italy is the top durum buyer in the EU. U.S. durum sales to Italy are up 165 percent from last year at 248,000 MT. Increased sales to the EU more than offset decreased sales to Algeria and Nigeria. Algerian durum sales are down 30 percent from last year at 45,000 MT and Nigerian durum sales are down 58 percent from 2018/19 at 28,000 MT. There is also a significant portion of these 2019/20 durum sales currently designated as “sales to unknown destinations.”

*U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) publishes a new Commercial Sales report every Thursday documenting wheat export sales-to-date by country and class for the current marketing year compared to the previous marketing year on the same date. The report also includes a 10-year commercial sales history by class and country. Data is sourced from the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Weekly Export Sales Report.

/by
thumbnail

Wheat Industry News

Recent news and highlights from around the wheat industry.

Speaking of Wheat: “Adios South America! We hosted 5 seminars in 5 different cities and in 3 different countries. We made contact with about 100 buyers, technical staff, or managers of mills to tell them the story of the 2019 [U.S. wheat] crop. I couldn’t ask for a better team to travel with and get to know a little better.” – Jason Scott, Maryland Wheat Farmers and USW Past Chairman, commenting on his participation in 2019 USW Crop Quality Seminars in Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

U.S. Wheat Exports Up for the Week. USDA reported export sales of U.S. wheat for the week ending Oct. 24 at 493,700 metric tons (MT), toward the high end of trade expectations for 200,000 to 500,000 MT. USDA note total known outstanding sales and accumulated exports of all U.S. wheat classes for the 2019/20 marketing year to date were 14.6 million metric tons (MMT), 11 percent greater than last year’s year-to-date total of 13.1 MMT. See USW’s Commercial Sales Report online here.

Another Decline in U.S. Wheat Planted Area? “Dogged by lower prices and tepid demand, U.S. wheat farmers are poised to plant the fewest acres of winter varieties in 110 years,” reported Bloomberg in a story about a survey of farmers. The business news service sites abundant global supplies, farm gate winter wheat prices that are less than corn (maize) prices in some areas and late soybean harvest interrupting some double crop opportunities.

November is National Bread Month. November is a great time for pumpkin spice and everything nice, but it’s also the perfect time to celebrate National Bread Month. Both whole grain flour and enriched flour are important to maintaining a healthy diet. The USDA Dietary Guidelines recommend that at least half of the five to eight servings of grains consumed daily should come from whole grain sources. Read more from the Kansas Wheat Commission here.

Registration for 2020 Agricultural Outlook Forum. This week USDA has opened registration for the 96th annual Agricultural Outlook Forum (AOF), its largest event of the year on Feb. 20 to 21, 2020, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Va. “The Innovation Imperative: Shaping the Future of Agriculture” sessions will focus on innovations in agriculture, global trade trends, food loss and waste, frontiers in conservation, and the science of food safety. More information will be released in November. USW is a cooperator with USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service.

National Wheat Foundation Scholarship Applications are due by Dec. 1, 2019. The Jerry Minore Scholarship is awarded to deserving high school or college students pursuing a career in agriculture for the 2019/2020 academic year. This year the Foundation will be issuing two scholarships for $2,500 each.

Subscribe to USW Reports. USW publishes a variety of reports and content that are available to subscribe to, including a bi-weekly newsletter highlighting recent Wheat Letter blog posts, the weekly Price Report and the weekly Harvest Report (available May to October). Subscribe here.

Follow USW Online. Visit our page at https://www.facebook.com/uswheat for the latest updates, photos and discussions of what is going on in the world of wheat. Also, find breaking news on Twitter at www.twitter.com/uswheatassoc and video stories at https://www.youtube.com/uswheatassociates.

/by
thumbnail

Welcome News for Science-Based Regulation of Plant Breeding Innovations

By Elizabeth Westendorf, USW Assistant Director of Policy

A recent decision by Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency is a great step forward for innovative breeding methods that can help farmers address some of the world’s most urgent challenges.

The agency announced that Japan’s government will not require special labeling for products derived from plant breeding innovation, such as gene editing, that do not contain foreign DNA. Japan has a history of skepticism toward new agricultural technology. For example, it requires products that include transgenic traits be labeled as such. The Consumer Affairs Agency’s decision is important because it helps add clarity to how gene editing may be regulated and supports advanced technology development.

That is good news for agriculture in general, even more so for wheat production specifically. Unlike other major row crops in the U.S., there are no wheat varieties with commercialized GM traits. That means farmers do not have access to the seed technology that has helped others. We see this disadvantage in declining acres and in a slower pace of yield increases compared to soybeans, corn and other crops U.S. farmers can grow. Gene editing provides a safe and efficient way to make targeted improvements in new wheat varieties that respond to environmental stressors, combat plant disease, and benefit millers and consumers alike. However, these benefits are only possible when regulations are based in science rather than rooted in fear.

With changing climates, severe weather events, and perennial concerns like drought, disease, and pests, it is imperative that the world’s farmers have access to the best tools available. And this includes their seed. With those tools, we can ensure that U.S. farmers are providing the highest possible quality wheat consistently and reliably for years to come.

For more information about a growing understanding of DNA and advanced breeding methods in agriculture, and to learn how innovations such as gene editing can benefit our planet, our health and our food, visit www.innovature.com.

/by
thumbnail
, ,

USW Publishes Annual Crop Quality Report and Hosts Seminars to Help Customers Make Purchasing and Milling Decisions

As a key part of its commitment to transparency and trade service, U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) produces an annual Crop Quality Report that includes grade, flour and baking data for all six U.S. wheat classes. The report compiles comprehensive data from analysis of hundreds of samples conducted during and after harvest by our partner organizations and laboratories. The report provides essential, objective information to help buyers get the wheat they need at the best value possible.

The 2019 USW Crop Quality Report is now available for download in English, Spanish, French and Italian, and will be available in Chinese and Arabic soon. USW also shares more detailed, regional reports for all six U.S. wheat classes on its website, as well as additional information on its sample and collection methods, solvent retention capacity (SRC) recommendations, standard deviation tables and more. Download these reports and resources from the website here.

USW’s annual Crop Quality Seminars are already underway and will continue over the next month around the world. USW invites its overseas customers, including buyers, millers and processors, to these seminars led by USW staff, U.S. wheat farmers, state wheat commission staff and educational partner organizations. The seminars dive into grade factors, protein levels, flour extraction rates, dough stability, baking loaf volume, noodle color and texture and more for all six U.S. wheat classes and are tailored to focus on the needs and trends in each regional market.

In 2019, USW is projected to host 43 seminars in 41 countries, including official seminars in the South America region for the first time in several years.

Customers have previously shared that they use the report throughout the year as a reference manual and to guide them through purchases and future planning. The seminars allow U.S. and USW experts to interpret the data and how to use it. Customers will often use the seminars and report as educational training for new employees.

The reports and seminars have been a traditional part of USW’s strategy since 1959, growing to become its single largest marketing activity.

Look for updates from the 2019 USW Crop Quality Seminars on Facebook and Twitter.

/by

Think Farm Export Programs Don’t Matter? Think Again.

GET THE REST OF THE STORY

DTN Wheat Detail
DTN Corn Detail

2008-2013 U.S. Wheat Associates. All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy | Non-Discrimination Statement