09/07/05 Soft white wheat awaits swing demand

Farm and Ranch September 7, 2005 You know the saying, the cure for low prices is low prices. As Mike Kruger of M-K Commodities near Portland, Oregon, puts it, soft white wheat is priced to sell. According to USDA Market News in Portland soft white wheat spot prices are at their lowest level since July of 2003. Kruger says what the soft white wheat market needs is swing demand like it got from an Egyptian purchase of two cargoes last week. Kruger: "The way we are priced basically, we're, gosh 25-30 cents cheaper than soft red. We are even cheaper than French. So they will take a bigger share of soft white which is what we need right now. We are priced so sell. And we need swing buyers like Egypt to buy more and price sensitive buyers. The fanciest potentials are China, India, Pakistan, the CCC. But we are basically priced to sell and waiting for somebody who cares." While China is projected to import much less wheat this year than last, Kruger says the Chinese trade is talking about needing four million tons of high quality wheat. Kruger: "So to them that is DNS or low protein soft white. They have bought a bit year to date. They could easily buy quite a bit more." Kruger says we are at prices that could see a lot of this year's crop go under loan while we wait to see demand kick off. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.