Overseas buyers of Canadian grain are being surprised by Canada’s New Crop Missions, but not because they are hearing about bad crops and poor quality.
All serious buyers of Canadian wheat and durum already know Western Canada had a bad growing season and nightmarish harvest, but few realize Canada still has lots of good crops to sell.
“We have a better news story to tell them than what they’ve been hearing,” said Cam Dahl, president of Cereals Canada.
Despite the growing conditions and harvest problems, more than 55 percent of Canada’s Canada Western Red Spring wheat is No. 1 or No. 2, which is more than many buyers have expected.
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That wheat also has good milling and baking characteristics, so Canada still has much premium product to sell, Dahl said during a break in meetings in London, England.
The New Crop Missions take place every year once the Canadian crop is harvested and roughly assessed. Representatives of the entire Canadian grain industry, from farmers to industry organization leaders to regulators, fly off to meet with buyers.
This year’s missions began in Canada with a set of meetings with Canadian millers. Following that, missions left for Asia and South America. After returning briefly to Canada, a mission headed back overseas to Algeria, Morocco and the European Union.
The latter trip focused on durum.
“There’s lots of durum talk, which unfortunately is the more difficult discussion this year,” said Dahl about Canada’s damaged crop.
Other countries also have equivalents to the New Crop Missions but are generally less comprehensive than Canada’s, Dahl said. The Canadian missions contain the entire wheat chain, including farmers, which offers foreign buyers a better sense of how the Canadian industry operates and what it can deliver.
“Having the producers here is a really important part of the discussion,” said Dahl.
For instance, many buyers are worried about ochratoxin, a dangerous mycotoxin that can develop in poorly stored and handled grain. Farmers on the missions can explain to buyers how they store their grain, which tends to reassure them.
Dahl said the world is awash with low quality wheat from the Black Sea region and other exporters, but there is little high quality, high protein wheat on the world market.
“There is room in the market for the Canadian crop,” said Dahl.
“There’s a lot of wheat, but there’s not a lot of good wheat.”
The missions end in mid-December.
