A group of Southeast Asian flour millers recently became a pioneer of sorts, making up the first international trade team to receive mentoring at the Northern Crops Institute’s (NCI) new home. They were also the first team to visit the U.S. Wheat Council’s (USW) new West Coast office in Portland.
More importantly, experts from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines got to experience a harvest of hard red spring wheat and soft white wheat, said to be one of the best crops in years.
Following a successful conclusion of the USW Wheat Value Contracting Workshop, the team is returning home with good news.
US Vice President for South and Southeast Asia Joe Sowers described the participants as “auspicious”. He noted the excellent opportunity to meet wheat farmers and discuss the crop. An informative session at the Wheat Marketing Centre (WMC) and a tour of grain export facilities are key parts of the workshop.
The USW’s oft-used tagline, “America’s wheat warehouses are always open,” rang especially true.
“The Wheat Value Contracting program has become a very important workshop that we hold regularly, where we bring representatives from Southeast Asian millers to the U.S. to tour and help them identify the quality attributes of U.S. wheat,” says Sowers. “A key part of the workshop is comparing the performance of their flour with that of other millers. We try to show them how we can improve the quality of their end product.”
The Philippines is the largest buyer of both U.S. HRS and SW. Indonesia regularly imports between 9 and 11 million tons of wheat. Its sources are mainly Australia and Canada. However, although its share is small, Indonesia is often in the top 10 buyers of U.S. wheat. Indonesia was the seventh largest market last year. The U.S. market share in Indonesia has risen to about 12% in recent years. This is a market with great growth potential. Malaysia has a much smaller population and market, but is a consistent buyer of U.S. wheat. There is great potential as exports of finished products by Malaysian bread companies are growing rapidly.
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US Wheat Council Wheat Letters Blog
