Iran now a swing soft white wheat buyer

Farm and Ranch February 9, 2009 The weekly export report for wheat issued last week by the USDA showed that Iran purchased 60-thousand metric tons of U.S. soft white wheat during the later part of January. It has only been in the past year that Iran began buying U.S. wheat, albeit indirectly, for the first time since the 1980’s. Back then the mideast nation was the number one export market for Pacific Northwest soft white wheat growers. That ended with the Iranian revolution. Mike Krueger of MK Commodities in Oregon says Iran first began buying U.S. hard red winter wheat last year. Krueger: “Along the way they started to buy some white wheat. And right now they have a little over eight million purchased we are absolutely sure of. I think there is another two million listed to unknown. That all as been fairly recently. They are a huge importer. They should love white wheat for their flat bread just like they did 30 years ago. We are about an 80-cent discount to hard red. So if you are an Iranian and you like the flat bread as well or maybe better, and you can buy the white wheat 6-bits cheaper, we may see a lot more activity from them. And they have suddenly resurfaced as a heck of a swing buyer. Krueger says you can’t make any long term projections about Iran, but if they like soft white they may resume being an important buyer. I’m Bob Hoff and that’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.