Global buyers of quality wheat face disappointment in Canada

Buyers looking to Canada for highquality wheat to make bread may be thwarted as dry weather has hit crops in the country.

They used to purchase crops from the north of the US before drought roiled output there also.

Wheat plants with high protein content needed to bake bread have shriveled in the US, one of the world’s top exporters, creating a rare tight spot in a world awash with grain after four years of bumper harvests.

Supplies are so short and demand so strong that the US itself could rack up its third- highest level of wheat im- ports within the year following June 1, according to the US Department of Agriculture ( USDA).

The biggest importers of US high protein spring wheat are Japan and the Philippines, and they are already shopping around.

Buyers from the Philippines, who are normally US customers, bought three Canadian spring wheat cargoes for autumn delivery, said Rhyl Doyle, director of export trading at Winnipeg- based Paterson Grain.

But in the southern Canadian Prairies, some farmers are giving up on failed spring wheat crops, said Larry Weber, president of Saskatchewanbased Weber Commodities.

Poor crop conditions drove prices for high- quality spring wheat.

The USDA has forecast supplies of US spring wheat left over at the end of the marketing year on May 31, 2018 at 122 million bushels. That would be the smallest since the marketing year 2007 to 2008.