05/23/07 India's wheat situation

Farm and Ranch May 22, 2007 India's phytosanitary regulations, which prevent imports of U.S. wheat, will be the subject of meetings when Indian officials come to the U.S. in the next week or so and meet with USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The Indians are also expected to visit Portland, Oregon. India imported over six million metric tons of wheat this past year from non-U.S. sources and Glen Squires with the Washington Wheat Commission says USDA projects India to import three million metric tons this coming marketing year. It has an outstanding tender right now for one million tons. Squires: " Squires: "For the last four or five years their production has not really increased. It has just kind of holding. Their consumption is increasing and their have gone to virtually zero. I mean it is really a low stock situation. And so they are having to import wheat. They have a growing population and little higher incomes and a little more demand for wheat." Squires says there are those who think India will have to import more than USDA is projecting, perhaps up to five million tons. Squires: "Because not only do they need to satisfy the current consumption pattern, but there is also a feeling that they actually need to start rebuilding some of their stocks just as a food security measure." India likes white bran wheat and Australia would normally be a supplier but because of its drought shortened crop this past year it won't have enough grain until the next harvest in November. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network