US Net Wheat Export Sales Rise 26.3% on Week, In Line with Market Estimates
S&P Global– 05/17/2019 US net export sales of wheat climbed 26.3% on week to 114,478 mt for the week-ended May 9, in line with market expectations, data Thursday from the US Department of Agriculture showed.
Market analysts had estimated wheat export sales for the week to be in the range of 75,000-360,000 mt. In the week-ended May 9, net sales to Indonesia, Iraq, the Philippines, Vietnam and Italy accounted for the highest increases, data from the USDA showed. On a marketing year-to-date basis, sales are 4% ahead of the seasonal pace required to reach USDA’s export target of 25.2 million mt for the season-ending May 31, according to brokerage firm INTL FCStone. Mexico continues to be the largest importer of US wheat, buying 3.3 million mt in the year-to-date period that began in June 2018, data from the US Wheat Associates showed. USW looks into developing and expanding global markets for US wheat producers. The Philippines has outpaced Japan as the second-largest US wheat importer, buying 3.2 million mt year to date, compared to Japan’s 2.8 million mt. US year-on-year wheat sales to China have fallen 95% in the year-to-date period, data from USW further showed. For the next marketing season starting June 2019, the new crop weekly sales jumped 1.7% on the week to 419,375 mt for the week-ended May 9, USDA data revealed. This was ahead of analysts’ expectations of 150,000-350,000 mt.
Read More
Morocco Set to Reintroduce Customs Duty on Soft Wheat
Reuters – 05/22/2019 The Moroccan government is expected to reintroduce a customs duty on soft wheat imports to promote sales from the local harvest which has been hit by a lack of rainfall, the president of the National Millers Federation said on Wednesday. Morocco scrapped a customs duty on soft wheat imports in November to maintain price stability. Chakib Alj of the millers federation said the government will announce on Thursday that it is being reintroduced, after the plan is approved by the government council. “Raising the customs duty on soft wheat is a usual procedure at this time of the year and may continue for up to three months to protect the local output,” Alj told Reuters by phone.
Read More
Ukraine’s New Wheat Standards to Take Effect June 10
Reuters – 05/23/2019 Ukraine’s new wheat quality standards come into force on June 10, the agriculture ministry said in a statement. The ministry will present the standards in early June and has previously said it would reduce the number of wheat classes to four from the current six. According to proposals, soft wheat will have three milling wheat classes and there will be one feed wheat class. Ukraine is among the leading global grain producers and exporters. (Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; editing by Jason Neely)
Read More
Perdue Hopeful on Trade with Japan, China
Capital Press – 05/20/2019 Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue said in a media call May 15 that while U.S. producers are being damaged by ongoing trade disputes, mutually beneficial agreements are in the offing. Perdue spoke to reporters from Seoul after wrapping up a trip to Japan and South Korea to participate in the G20 agriculture ministers’ meetings. “It’s been a productive trip. We’ve had good meetings with our cooperators and customers here in Japan and Korea and expressed gratitude for their involvement in helping to promote U.S. products here,” he said. A variety of commodity and market-access matters were discussed at the ministers’ meetings. Nothing was decided, but the issues were laid on the table, he said. As for a trade deal with Japan, the trade team expressed to Japanese officials U.S. expectations of “sooner rather than later,” he said. “We sent a very clear signal that our producers are becoming disadvantaged based on their agreement with 10 other nations and the EU,” he said.
Read More
Farmers Eagerly Await Trumps Trade Aid Plan But Concerns Grow that it May Dissapoint
CNBC– 05/22/2019 American farmers are eagerly awaiting the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest trade aid plan, but there are concerns that producers of corn and wheat could lose out with the package that could top $15 billion. “Details on the new trade mitigation program will be forthcoming shortly, but we want to be clear that the program is being designed to avoid skewing planting decisions one way or another,” USDA said in a statement Tuesday. The agency declined to discuss details of President Donald Trump’s plan to help farmers feeling the brunt of retaliatory tariffs from China. However, a source briefed on the new round of relief told CNBC the administration is offering “slightly more” than last year’s aid in terms of payment levels for several commodities but probably “won’t make everyone happy.”
Read More
Wild Wheat Relative Genes to Aid in Battle Against Trio of Pests
High Plains Journal – 05/22/2019 Wheat curl mite, greenbug and Hessian fly have long been troublemaker pests for Texas wheat, but a team of Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists is ready to go high tech to help control them. Shuyu Liu, AgriLife Research wheat geneticist in Amarillo, will lead a team to develop hard winter wheat germplasm with resistance to these pests using genes from a wild wheat relative. The research is funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture grant. Joining Liu on the study are AgriLife Research scientists from Amarillo: Jackie Rudd, wheat breeder; Chenggen Chu, wheat genetics scientist; Ada Szczepaniec, entomologist; and Qingwu Xue, crop stress physiologist. Joining from College Station are Amir Ibrahim, wheat breeder, and Shichen Wang, bioinformatics scientist. Wheat production in Texas is limited by the harsh and variable environment and a multitude of diseases, insects and other pests, Rudd said. “We are now looking to the past, to wheat’s wild relatives, to find solutions to these stresses, which can reduce yield and end-use quality,” he said. The specific goal of this project is to explore synthetic hexaploid wheat to find new resistance genes to defend against these three pests, Liu said.
Read More