12/05/05 Chinese wheat buyers here but....

Farm and Ranch December 5, 2005 A large team of Chinese wheat buyers, representing private mills and government agencies, has arrived in the U.S. for two weeks of travel. But U.S. Wheat Associates, which is sponsoring the team along with USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service, says that unlike the visit by COFCO, the Chinese government grain buying agency, two years ago, it is not expected that any million ton sales of wheat will be announced. U.S. Wheat Associates says the focus of this team's visit is the long term. And while China has not been a major importer of wheat this year, John Oades of U.S. Wheat's Portland office, says it is believed we will see increasing imports by China into the future. It will be somewhat of a weather market with import levels depending on China's domestic production. . Oades: "Probably somewhere between zero and eight million tons and I would say if you needed to pick a narrower range that we could expect to see more normally probably in the four to six million tons a year, keeping in mind that a million tons is about 37-million bushels." Although there is a place for soft white wheat in China, Oades says what Pacific Northwest Wheat Growers really need for that market is hard white wheat. Oades: "That will go in there and complement the major production in their country that is also hard white wheat. And they need to be high protein, strong gluten hard whites." Oades gave a presentation on the Chinese market at last week's Pacific Northwest Grains Conference held in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Meanwhile one stop that visiting Chinese team will make is in Portland, Oregon. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.