04/03/08 U.S. Wheat Associates Latin America mission

Farm and Ranch April 3, 2008 Some board members of U.S. Wheat Associates are on a trade mission this week to Latin American countries. The team's first stop was in Colombia. Last year Colombia imported about 1.3 million tons of wheat. The U.S. had 56 percent of Colombia's market share followed by Canada at 35 percent. The U.S. Wheat mission met with the Colombia Millers Association. Its chairman, Carlos Paz, says they like doing business with the United States. But Pas also said it is important to the U.S. wheat industry for the U.S. Congress to ratify the pending Free Trade Agreement with Colombia. Paz: "Colombia has the potential to grow as I said twice to three times the consumption. Import duties are very high and with the treaty we could get import duties lowered and improve the price relation of wheat products. We have a treaty signed with Mercosur and every year the import duties from Argentina are coming down. Next year there will be no duties for Argentina. And we are discussing a treaty with Canada in which we will get zero import duties for Canadian wheat." The U.S.-Colombia Free Trade agreement would provide immediate duty free access for U.S. wheat. In addition to Colombia that U.S. Wheat Associates board team is visiting Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.