Visit to Yemen helps soft white wheat sales
Farm and Ranch Yemen has become an important export market for Pacific Northwest soft white wheat growers in recent years. However, Yemenis imports of soft white were down in the just concluded marketing year compared to the previous year from 715 thousand metric tons to 425-thousand as of mid-May. Washington Wheat Commission CEO Tom Mick recently made a trade servicing trip to Yemen. Mick: “When I was there I was a little discouraged that because of cheap wheat out of Russia, Ukraine, the Black Sea area they have cut back on imports of soft white wheat. They do not like the quality of Russian or Ukrainian wheat but it is so cheap they feel they have to buy it to be competitive. However, I talked about the quality of soft white wheat and how it can be used in blending and the situation in Australia is such that they are not able to make their shipments in time to meet their traditional customers‘ needs and we stand ready. It was a very successful trip in the fact that they leading wheat buyer who hasn‘t bought any U.S. wheat for over 20 years, he has been buying straight Australian, just bought two Panamax size vessels of soft white wheat from the Pacific Northwest. So I think it was a very successful trip.” Black Sea wheat is also tough competition in the Egyptian market, another country Mick visited on his trip. That story tomorrow. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network. ?
