6-6 IAN Wheat Crisis

 U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) and the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) have been made aware that the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries or MAFF has temporarily suspended tenders for soft white wheat from the United States because of the recent announcement from USDA that an unauthorized Roundup Ready GM trait was detected in volunteer wheat on a single farm in Oregon. MAFF has not, however, suspended or restricted all U.S. wheat imports as some reports claim. MAFF did purchase U.S. hard red spring wheat and hard red winter wheat in its regular tender this week. Our organizations are also aware that wheat buyers in South Korea have temporarily suspended purchases of U.S. soft white wheat.

Because of the isolated nature of this discovery, there appears to be little scientific reason for governments to suspend U.S. soft white wheat purchases. In its announcement this week, USDA made it clear that there is no evidence suggesting that this material has entered commercial supplies and that there is no health risk associated with it. Eric Meyer Immediate Past President of Washington Association of Wheat Growers tells us that the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service or APHIS is “on it”: “I guess the message that they need to know is that APHIS has an ongoing investigation and we are trying not to speculate on the outcome of that investigation until we get some solid information from them. Hopefully that will be forthcoming. It takes time to get these things done. It is hard to sit back on the sidelines and wait for that to happen but we have to be patient and let them do their work. Let them get the outcome out there and see what they come up with.”

Oregon sold $492 million in wheat in 2011, the most recent data available, and 90 percent of it went overseas