Wheat World

U.S. Wheat Experts Meet With Over A Thousand Customers Worldwide
Every year after harvest, wheat experts from U.S. Wheat Associates, universities, and state wheat organizations travel around the world to meet with U.S. wheat customers, providing crop quality information vital to importers and users making purchasing decisions. Perhaps just as importantly, the U.S. experts also listen to the customers—their concerns, their questions, their problems— so that the wheat industry can continue to respond to their needs. Following are highlights from the seminars to brief global wheat buyers about the 2000 American wheat crop:

South America Concerned About Biotech And Wheat Cleanliness
The first seminars of 2000 were held in South America: in Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Brazil. There were two issues that were common themes in the six meetings. First, concerns regarding the status of genetically modified wheat arose during the seminars. “There was a misconception that GM wheat was already being marketed by the U.S.,” USW marketing specialist Pablo Maluenda reports. “We were able to inform them that as of yet, there is no genetically modified wheat commercially produced or exported from the U.S.” The other issue was the oft-repeated refrain that Canadian wheat is more consistent in quality from one cargo to the next than U.S. wheat, and that the cleanliness of the Canadian wheat, a key issue for the millers in this region, is a distinct quality characteristic not present in U.S. wheat. USW staff was able to brief our customers on recent efforts on both fronts.

Taking on the Canadians in Central America
Central American seminars were held in El Salvador, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic. In El Salvador, the largest buyer of U.S. origin wheat in Central America, all of the major wheat milling and purchasing groups representing the countries of Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Honduras were in attendance. During the seminar, it was noted that the CWB was having shipping problems in Vancouver. “This announcement provided a real opportunity to counter the claims of the Canadian Wheat Board and promote the U.S. as a reliable supplier of high quality wheat at a reasonable price,” says USW regional manager Steve Wirsching.  In Venezuela, the second largest market in this region, attendees accounted for an estimated 75% of the Venezuelan market. In the Dominican Republic, representatives attended from Belize, Barbados, Cuba, Curacao, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, and Jamaica.

Southeast Asian Seminar Aids Customers’ Purchasing Decisions
Representatives from flour mills in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand attended the crop quality seminar in Bangkok. USW vice president Mark Samson reports that although there were numerous questions regarding the specific qualities of all classes of wheat, “a great deal of interest was shown in the varieties of hard wheat included in the crop quality report.” Over 75% of those in attendance indicated that the information presented was useful in their upcoming purchasing decisions. Numerous companies indicated that, based on the information provided during the seminar, they will adjust their contract specifications in order to improve the quality and value of the wheat purchased from the United States.

Concerns Answered in Japan
A wheat quality seminar was provided to the Kyushu Flour Millers Association. After the presentation about the quality outlook of the 2000 U.S. wheat crop, some members of the group raised specific quality concerns with recent shipments. U.S. Wheat Associates country director Seiji Terada was able to answer their questions and provide guidance on how to more fully ensure uniform quality of shipments.

Selenium Could Be Selling Point In Europe
Nine European countries hosted crop quality seminars. USW experts report that, currently, genetically modified wheat (if it was commercialized today) “would not have a chance to be marketed in Europe.” They also found that the strong dollar definitely slowed down the export pace of U.S. spring wheat to Europe, and that high protein German wheat is partly replacing U.S. and Canadian spring wheats. (German supplies of high quality wheat are limited, however.) Sprout damage was reported in part of the U.S. spring wheat and northern durum wheat crop, but importers took adequate measures in their specifications to deal with this.

In what could become an important selling point, USW discovered that recent diet studies show that the amount of selenium in U.S. wheat is higher than in European wheats. The European diets are deficit in selenium, while the Swiss diets seem to do much better because of the use of American wheat in their pasta products.

Middle East and African seminars address special needs
The markets through this region are diverse and unique, so seminars conducted in Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Kenya, and Yemen each presented a special topic of interest. One presentation explained the function of the U.S. futures markets and risk management techniques and tools available to buyers, and another gave a clearer explanation for better understanding wheat gluten. The ideas for these special seminar topics came from the USW/Cairo staff’s discussion with various buyers throughout the region during previous trade servicing visits and other meetings. For instance, Jordanians were interested in hearing about the U.S. position on genetically modified wheat, as well as learning more about the U.S. system for handling quarantine and human health issues in the inspections at loading.

Among the five seminars, Nairobi was the most active and appreciated, according to USW vice president Dick Prior. This was probably due to several reasons: this was the first time USW has conducted a crop quality seminar in Kenya; there was a very high caliber of attendees; and the USDA/FAS staff in Nairobi made an extra effort to assist and support this seminar. There were mill owners from Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, some mill managers, farmers, inspection personnel, freight forwarders, traders, and representatives from the Bureau of Standards. “Every sector had a special topic of interest, and everyone departed with a better understanding, improved confidence, and appreciation for the US marketing and inspection systems,” Prior reports.

WHEAT WORLD is brought to you by the checkoff funded Minnesota Wheat Research and Promotion Council.

The majority of the activities cited here are carried out by U.S. Wheat Associates, your checkoff funded international market development affiliate, with offices located in 15 counties around the world.