Recent news and highlights from around the U.S. wheat industry.

Speaking of Wheat. “We’re proud to grow the best quality wheat you’ll find anywhere. But we can’t feed the world if we can’t get it to market… Multiple modes of transportation to Portland help us better serve our customers and be regarded as a reliable supplier throughout the world.” — Joseph Anderson, a wheat farmer from Genesee, Idaho, and Idaho Wheat Commission Chairman. 

Market Analyst Position Opens. The U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) Market Analyst position in its Arlington, Va., Headquarters Office helps USW fulfill its mission through in-depth analysis of global wheat production, trade and pricing, and reporting relevant information to domestic and international stakeholders on a regular basis. Learn more about this position at this link.

2021 National Wheat Yield Contest Opens. The National Wheat Foundation (NWF) is now accepting grower enrollment for the 2021 National Wheat Yield Contest. Entry categories include winter wheat and spring wheat, with dryland and irrigated subcategories. Entries are judged on yield quantity and functional quality. Learn more about the contest online.  

The National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) is Hiring a Director of Communications and Partnerships to implement a strategic communications and partnerships plan to increase awareness of NAWG and association policies at the national and state levels, as well as on Capitol Hill. Learn more here.

USDA Has Lowered its World Wheat Ending Stocks Estimate by 3% to 304 million metric tons (MMT), still a record level and 10% more than the 5-year average. USDA now expects the United States to export 10.1 MMT of HRW, 7.76 MMT of HRS, 2.04 MMT of SRW, 6.12 MMT of white wheat (soft and hard), and 820,000 metric tons (MT) of durum in 2020/21. Read more here.

Subscribe to USW Reports. USW publishes various reports and content that are available to subscribe to, including a bi-weekly newsletter highlighting recent Wheat Letter blog posts, the weekly Price Report and the weekly Harvest Report (available May to October). Subscribe here.

Follow USW Online. Visit our Facebook page for the latest updates, photos and discussions of what is going on in the world of wheat. Also, find breaking news on Twitter, video stories on Vimeo and more on LinkedIn.

Recent news and highlights from around the U.S. wheat industry.

Speaking of Wheat. “American strength in agricultural exports has been built on … the principle that all markets matter. Cuba … imports $2 billion in food each year, less than ten percent from the United States. U.S. exports of potatoes, wheat … and other products stand to grow significantly.” – From a Letter to President Biden from the United States Agriculture Coalition for Cuba.

Group to Biden: Open Relations with Cuba. In a Jan. 14 letter to now President Biden, United States Agriculture Coalition for Cuba (USACC) urged “a return to policies of engagement toward Cuba, for the sake of the U.S. national interest, to boost U.S. food exports to Cuba, and to support the development of beneficial relations between our countries’ agricultural sectors.” U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) is a USACC member and signed the letter to the President. 

In Case You Missed It, USW’s new film “Wholesome: The Journey of Wheat” can now be viewed on Facebook and Vimeo. USW premiered the film Jan. 12 and it has now been shared with USW’s 13 overseas offices to support U.S. wheat export market development. The film was produced with funding from the Agricultural Trade Promotion program administered by USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service and in cooperation with USW state wheat commission members.

Wheat Industry Well-Represented on USDA Advisory Panels. Retired Washington wheat farmer and USW Past Chairman Randy Suess was recently appointed to USDA’s Agricultural Trade Advisory Committee (ATAC) for Trade in Grains, Feed, Oilseeds and Planting Seeds. He joins North Dakota Wheat Commission Administrator Neal Fisher, Kansas wheat farmer and USW Director Ron Suppes and USW Vice President of Policy Dalton Henry on that committee. In addition, USW President Vince Peterson serves on USDA’s Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee (APAC). The advisory committee system was created to ensure U.S. trade policy and trade negotiating objectives adequately reflect U.S. public- and private-sector interests.

Sincere Sympathy to USW/Cape Town Regional Programs and Marketing Specialist Domenique De Oliveira Opperman and her family on the recent passing of her father.

National Wheat Foundation (NWF) Hires Project Manager. NWF has hired Anne Osborne to manage the National Wheat Yield Contest (NWYC) and educational projects. Osborne, formerly a sales agronomist for the Farmers Union Oil Co-op, will replace Steve Joehl, who is retiring in early 2021. Read the full release here.

Subscribe to USW Reports. USW publishes a variety of reports and content that are available to subscribe to, including a bi-weekly newsletter highlighting recent Wheat Letter blog posts, the weekly Price Report and the weekly Harvest Report (available May to October). Subscribe here.

Follow USW Online. Visit our Facebook page at for the latest updates, photos and discussions of what is going on in the world of wheat. Also, find breaking news on Twitter, video stories on Vimeo and more on LinkedIn.

Recent news and highlights from around the wheat industry.

Speaking of Wheat. “It’s like finding the missing pieces for your favorite puzzle that you have been working on for decades. By having many complete gene assemblies available, we can now help solve the huge puzzle that is the massive wheat pan-genome and usher in a new era for wheat discovery and breeding.” — Dr. Curtis Pozniak, wheat breeder and director of the University of Saskatchewan Crop Development Centre, describing collaborative work with Kansas State University that completed genome sequencing of 15 wheat varieties representing breeding programs around the world.

Biden Nominates Former USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to serve in the same position in the new administration. The National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) congratulated Vilsack for being nominated. “We look forward to working again with former Secretary Vilsack and are ready to engage with any new staff at USDA,” said NAWG President Dave Milligan, a wheat farmer from Cass City, Mich.

“Bake to the Future,” a podcast produced by the American Bakers Association (ABA) recently featured a discussion about the future of the U.S. wheat foods supply chain between NAWG CEO Chandler Goule, North American Millers’ Association Jane DeMarchi and ABA President and CEO Robb MacKie. The industry executives weigh in on a range of topics and discuss the imperative of demystifying the farm-to-fork system for consumers. Listen to the podcast here: https://baketothefuture.org/.

Subscribe to USW Reports. USW publishes a variety of reports and content that are available to subscribe to, including a bi-weekly newsletter highlighting recent Wheat Letter blog posts, the weekly Price Report and the weekly Harvest Report (available May to October). Subscribe here.

Follow USW Online. Visit our Facebook page at for the latest updates, photos and discussions of what is going on in the world of wheat. Also, find breaking news on Twitter, video stories on Vimeo and more on LinkedIn.

Recent news and highlights from around the wheat industry.

Speaking of Wheat. “I think it is important to say that one of the first shipments of food aid our organization made was in 1961 after an earthquake in Northern Iran, and it was 1,500 metric tons of U.S. wheat.” – Jane Shey, Senior Policy Consultant, World Food Program USA, in a presentation to the U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) Food Aid Working Group.

On the Passing of Dr. Barry Flinchbaugh. The legendary Kansas State University professor and agricultural policy expert died on Nov. 2. Though perhaps not as well-known by international wheat buyers, Dr. Flinchbaugh’s influence on U.S. agricultural policy and on many wheat growers and wheat industry leaders have certainly influenced U.S. agricultural trade relationships. USW Vice President of Policy Dalton Henry was taught by and served as a teaching assistant with Dr. Flinchbaugh at Kansas State. He recently told Kansas Wheat that, “I owe an awful lot … to the good doctor. The world will sorely miss his willingness to call it like he saw it, refusal to give in to petty politics and his belief in the students who took his class.” USW extends its sympathy to Dr. Flinchbaugh’s family and his many friends and past students.

Record Production…Record Consumption. USW published its latest Supply and Demand Report Nov. 10, reporting that USDA expects record world wheat production of 772 million metric tons (MMT) in 2020/21. Consumption continues its record setting trend with USDA now seeing 753 MMT of wheat use. See the entire USW report here.

2021 IGP Institute Milling Courses. The IGP Institute in Manhattan, Kan., has several upcoming flour milling courses in 2021. Courses in this curriculum cover all aspects of the flour milling process from grain selection to finished products. Courses will explore many areas including; technical milling, mill management practices, quality control, food safety, flowsheet design, process automation and controls, process efficiencies, hard and soft wheat milling, maintenance and more. More information and registration available here.

Subscribe to USW Reports. USW publishes a variety of reports and content that are available to subscribe to, including a bi-weekly newsletter highlighting recent Wheat Letter blog posts, the weekly Price Report and the weekly Harvest Report (available May to October). Subscribe here.

Follow USW Online. Visit our Facebook page at for the latest updates, photos and discussions of what is going on in the world of wheat. Also, find breaking news on Twitter, video stories on Vimeo and more on LinkedIn.

Recent news and highlights from around the wheat industry.

Speaking of Wheat. “I believe soil is a living thing … Every living thing has rights. Therefore, soil also has rights. As long as you are consuming the natural resources – food, water, elements – coming from the soil, you owe it to soil to put something back, to give something back, whatever you can.” – Dr. Rattan Lal, 2020 World Food Prize Laureate. For more information on how U.S. farmers are caring for the soil, visit our website at https://www.uswheat.org/policy/innovation-and-sustainability/.

Leading soil scientist Dr. Rattan Lal officially received the 2020 World Food Prize Oct. 15 for developing and mainstreaming a soil-centric approach to increasing food production that conserves natural resources and mitigates climate change. Dr. Lal’s pioneering research on the restoration of soil health in Africa, Asia and Latin America led to revelations that impacted yields, conservation and climate change mitigation, practices that are now at the heart of efforts to improve agriculture systems in the tropics and globally.

Argentine government approves wheat variety with GMO trait. The wheat variety includes a drought resistant trait developed by the biotechnology firm Bioceres SA. However, the variety cannot be used commercially without official acceptance for import by Brazil’s government. There are currently no genetically engineered wheat varieties in commercial production in the United States. For more information, please see the Joint Statement on “Principles for Commercialization” from U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) and the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG).

Pioneering wheat work recognized. A U.S. research team earned the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative (BGRI) 2020 Gene Stewardship award for their work protecting global wheat crops from fungal pathogens. The plant pathologists, geneticists and agronomists from the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) were recognized for research leading to a diverse range of strategies introducing and improving resistance to stem rust—particularly the highly virulent Ug99 stem rust strain. Read more in Seed Today.

Extraordinary Biography of Wheat. A Montana State University (MSU) professor recently published the book, “Amber Waves: The Extraordinary Biography of Wheat, from Wild Grass to World Megacrop.” For Dr. Cathy Zabinski, a professor in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences in MSU’s College of Agriculture, the project meant getting out of her comfort zone in order to connect with her audience. “I wrote this to give us a sense of the history of our food production … helpful as we’re addressing the big question of how to produce enough food for the upcoming decades with a growing human population,” she said.

Subscribe to USW Reports. USW publishes a variety of reports and content that are available to subscribe to, including a bi-weekly newsletter highlighting recent Wheat Letter blog posts, the weekly Price Report and the weekly Harvest Report (available May to October). Subscribe here.

Follow USW Online. Visit our Facebook page at for the latest updates, photos and discussions of what is going on in the world of wheat. Also, find breaking news on Twitter, video stories on Vimeo and more on LinkedIn.