02/03/05 A wheat grower`s thoughts on China

02/03/05 A wheat grower`s thoughts on China

Farm and Ranch February 3, 2005 The impact of urbanization on agriculture is what struck Washington wheat grower and Wheat Commission member Randy Suess when he visited China recently on a U.S. Wheat Associates sponsored team visit. Suess: "We were not in the wheat growing region. We were in a rice growing region and were on a train heading north up to Wuxi. You can see that a lot of the rice paddies have been converted now to higher value crops. So if they have enough water to flood it to make a rice paddy they are now raising shrimp, prawns, tulapia and catfish in those areas. What isn't being converted to that is being converted to high-rise apartments because the population there is on a huge increase. With the industrialization the factories are taking over a big portion of land. If that is also happening in the wheat growing region, there is going to be a demand there for more wheat in the future I think." Suess sees Canada being the primary competitor for the Chinese wheat market. Suess: "Australia is a little bit on the far side for them. It is actually a little bit closer for us to get it to China. Canada is about a push. So we just have the competition with Canada and them undercutting us usually $5 a metric ton on shipments to compete with." Suess says that in the 2003-2004 marketing year the U.S. had 38 percent of the Chinese market and that U.S. share by wheat class is estimated at 45 percent hard red spring wheat, 37 percent soft red winter and 18 percent soft white. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.
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