06/05/06 Market development successes

Farm and Ranch June 5, 2006 Most soft white wheat grown in the Pacific Northwest is exported and work continues to develop new overseas demand. Tom Mick, CEO of the Washington Wheat Commission, says there have been some recent successes. One is Eritrea which was visited by Mick and the Wheat Commission's chairman a year ago. Mick: "When we were there we met with PVOs, which is private voluntary organizations that work with food aid. Those people were of the opinion that if you are going to make bread you have to have hard red winter. We showed them that the indigenous bread they consume in Eritrea you need a soft white. They bought our story. Understood it and since then Eritrea has emerged as one of the major export markets for us." A lot of attention is being put on Central and South America and a success story there is Ecuador. Mick: "We donated a container, 100 tons of soft white wheat to two flours mills to test in Ecuador. They liked it so well they bought their first trial shipment of 13-thousand tons. We hope this develops into a bigger market." Mick says the whole Latin American project the Commission is involved in is showing dividends with exports sales to the region up 18-hundred percent. Mick: "Admittedly they were very low to start with, but Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador, these countries are now starting to buy soft white and we are very excited about the potential." I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.