Germany Seeks New Wheat Export Markets as Saudi Opens to Russia
Reuters – 08/14/2019
German wheat exporters are seeking access to new markets including China, Mexico and Indonesia, an industry association said, following signals that Saudi Arabia is about to open up to imports from Russia. Saudi Arabia has been Germany’s biggest market for wheat exports in recent years, but German firms face much tougher competition after Saudi state grain buyer SAGO said last Thursday that it will relax quality specifications for wheat imports from its next tender. The move is seen as opening the door to Black Sea imports, especially from Russia. “The export chances for German wheat to Saudi Arabia could fall in future,” the association of German farm cooperatives, DRV, said in a statement on Wednesday. “The country has recently reduced its quality demands for imports.”
Prospects of U.S.-China Trade Deal Creates Access Worries for Canadian Farmers
msn.com – 08/13/2019
China’s move to stop buying several Canadian agricultural products has punished some farmers, and now industry leaders are worrying about the prospect of a broader threat — an eventual U.S.-China trade deal. Canadian exports of beef, pork, canola and soybeans have largely been locked out of the massive Chinese market following the December arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver. Meng was detained on an extradition request by the United States, a move that angered Beijing and has dealt a severe blow to Canada-China relations. But a few Canadian crops have had stronger sales to China over the past year. The trade fight between the world’s two largest economies has, for example, helped contribute to a surge in Canadian wheat exports to China since Beijing imposed tariffs on American products. There are industry fears about what could come next — what will happen to Canadian farm exports if U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping eventually strike a deal? “If Trump forces China to buy a lot of American agri-food products, we won’t be selling Canadian agri-food products to China,” said Brian Innes, president of the Canadian Agri-food Trade Alliance.
New Platform Rapidly Diagnoses Wheat Rust
World-Grain – 08/13/2019
Researchers at the John Innes Centre in Norwich in eastern England have developed a new mobile surveillance technique that gives them the ability to identify specific wheat rust fungus strains within 48 hours of collecting a sample. The new digital platform significantly reduces the time to identify strains, which previously took months.“Knowing which strain you have is critical information that can be incorporated into early warning systems and results in more effective control of disease outbreaks in farmer’s fields” said Dr. Dave Hodson, a rust pathologist at CIMMYT in Ethiopia and co-author of the paper “MARPLE, a point-of-care, strain-level disease diagnostics and surveillance tool for complex fungal pathogens.” The paper recently was published in BMC Biology. The technology is known as the MARPLE (Mobile And Real-time PLant disEase) diagnostic platform. The researchers said the platform targets parts of the rust genetic code that can be sequenced on a portable MinION sequencing platform from Oxford Nanopore. “This helps us tell strains apart and quickly recognize those we’ve seen before or spot new ones that could be a new threat,” said first author. Dr Guru Radhakrishnan from the John Innes Centre.
Spring Wheat Market Waits on Harvest Reports
AgUpdate – 08/13/2019
As spring wheat harvest was just getting underway, the market seemed to be waiting for harvest reports before moving one direction or another. Prices hadn’t done much in the last couple of weeks, according to Erica Olson, marketing specialist for the North Dakota Wheat Commission, adding that as of Aug. 6, the September Minneapolis futures were at $5.22. Local cash prices are basically the same as two weeks ago at $4.25-$4.60. “One thing we have seen over the last few weeks is that the spring wheat price spreads continue to widen over the Kansas City hard red winter wheat futures,” Olson said. “Right now, that spread is about $1. That’s because we’re in the flux of winter wheat harvest and producers are seeing good yields and so that market (Kansas City) has been a bit weaker.”
Introduction to Flour Milling Course Wraps Up
Morning Ag Clips – 08/13/2019
In an effort to expand the knowledge of professionals in the flour milling industry, the International Association of Operative Millers (IAOM) and the IGP Institute partnered in hosting the Introduction to Flour Milling course. This 5-day course trained seven professionals from across the U.S. and surrounding countries. Participants engaged in all aspects of flour mill processes including wheat selection, milling, blending and baking functionality. “The class spent the week learning about everything that goes into the operations of a flour mill,” says Shawn Thiele, grain processing curriculum manager and IGP Institute associate director of the IGP Institute. “They started off learning about the six wheat classes and worked through cleaning, conditioning, the milling system, blending, and baking the finished product.” Thiele adds that most of the participants had many years working in the industry, but were new to the flour milling process. In particular, Kim Cooper, manager of government affairs for North American Millers Association (NAMA), had never witnessed the actual process of milling.
Source: U.S. Wheat Associates