U.S. Growers Laud Japan Trade Deal
Capital Press – 09/26/2019
U.S. farmers are cheering a new trade deal with Japan that they say will put them on equal footing with overseas competitors. “This is great news — this is what exactly what we’ve been working for ever since the U.S. pulled out of the TPP agreement,” said Glen Squires, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission. TPP was a trade agreement that included 12 Pacific Rim nations, including Japan and the U.S…The commission and U.S. Wheat Associates, the marketing arm of the wheat industry, worked “tirelessly” with the U.S. Office of the Trade Representative to provide background and insight to negotiators, Squires said. Squires said the grain commission worked with Japanese flour millers and sent the same “logical, uniform” message to both sides of the trade discussions, he said.
Syria Makes Second Attempt to Swap Its Durum for Soft Wheat
Reuters – 09/26/2019
Syria has issued a new tender to exchange 100,000 tonnes of its durum wheat for the same quantity of soft wheat for bread making, after failing to agree a deal in an initial attempted swap for Russian wheat, a government source said on Thursday. Syria’s General Establishment for Cereal Processing and Trade (Hoboob) originally issued a tender with a Sept. 17 deadline for offers, but no agreement was reached and the process was called off, the source said. A new tender document seen by Reuters showed Syria’s Hoboob was again seeking to barter 100,000 tonnes of local durum wheat for soft bread making wheat, this time with an Oct. 28 deadline for offers. Swaps are relatively unusual in the wheat market, with cash purchases a more common way of acquiring new supply.
Kim Anderson Explains How Russian Crop Projections Are Impacting Domestic Wheat Prices
Oklahoma Farm Report – 09/26/2019
In Russia, the prediction for their wheat production, just before the USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand (WASDE) report came out, Russia released their own prediction of 2.75 billion bushels, he said. Then the USDA came out the next day with 2.66 billion bushels in projected Russian production. Then again, earlier this week, Russia came out with 2.87 billion bushels. “In recent weeks, France has under bid Russia for some cargos of wheat in Egypt,” Anderson said. “Now France is exporting Soft Red winter wheat compared to Russia’s Hard Red winter wheat. Now, remember that any bushel that Russia doesn’t sell, they are going to be selling to somebody else if they don’t sell it to Egypt.” They have been saying for quite some time that Argentina would have a down year because of their lack of water, but a report came out this week indicating that they would probably have a record crop this year. And in Argentina, they export what they produce, he added.
China’s Top Diplomat Says Beijing Willing to Buy More U.S. Products
Reuters – 09/26/2019
China’s top diplomat said on Thursday that China was willing to buy more U.S. products, and said trade talks would yield results if both sides “take more enthusiastic measures” to show goodwill and reduce “pessimistic language” in their trade dispute. Wang Yi, China’s state councillor and foreign minister, said in response to questions from Reuters that the Trump administration had shown goodwill by waiving tariffs on many Chinese products. “And so, (on) the Chinese side, we are willing to buy more products that are needed by the Chinese market,” Wang said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders. “We hope both sides can take more enthusiastic measures, reduce pessimistic language and actions. If everyone does this, talks will not only resume, but will proceed and yield results.”
Study: Large Scale Genomics Will Improve the Yield, Climate Resilience and Quality of Wheat
Phys.org – 09/26/2019
Using the full wheat genome map published in 2018, combined with data from field testing of wheat breeding lines in multiple countries, an international team of scientists has identified significant new chromosomal regions for wheat yield and disease resistance and created a freely-available collection of genetic information and markers for more than 40,000 wheat lines. Reported today in Nature Genetics, the results will speed up global efforts to breed more productive and climate-resilient varieties of bread wheat, a critical crop for world food security that is under threat from rising temperatures, rapidly-evolving fungal pathogens, and more frequent droughts, according to Philomin Juliana, wheat scientist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the new study. “This work directly connects the wheat genome reference map with wheat lines and extensive field data from CIMMYT’s global wheat breeding network,” said Juliana.
Source: U.S. Wheat Associates