September 6, 2007

 

CWB pursuing wheat sales to India

 

 

The Canadian Wheat Board (CWB) has been pursuing wheat sales to India despite a reduced supply of wheat, according to a CWB spokeswoman.

 

"The CWB sold 50,000 tonnes of Canadian wheat to India in a tender recently," said Micheline Violi, a communications coordinator for the CWB. Price and shipping details were not available.

 

She said the CWB anticipated further sales into that market in future tenders.

 

The CWB sold India 1 million tonnes of wheat during the 2006/07 (August/July) season, Violi said.

 

Previous to the 2006/07 sales to India, the CWB had not sold wheat to India since the 1996/97 (August/July) crop year when 266,000 tonnes of wheat was purchased.

 

The amount of wheat Canada can sell to India during 2007/08 will be limited by supply tightness and quality factors, said Glenn Lennox, a wheat analyst with the market analysis division of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

 

"The world is definitely working with tighter wheat supplies and Canada is no different," he said.

 

India generally looks for a lower-quality milling grade of wheat, he said, and in normal production years, Canada would have some of those grades available.

 

However, it appears that the CWB will be working with a smaller, but much higher-quality wheat crop than normal, Lennox said.

 

Canada's spring wheat production in 2007/08 (August/July) will be down significantly, with Lennox pegging output at 16.775 million tonnes. In 2006/07, Canada's spring wheat production totalled 21.919 million tonnes.

 

Further reducing the chances of Canada selling wheat to India will be limited supplies as the CWB will be looking to cover needs with traditional customers before looking elsewhere, he said.

 

Lennox estimated that India will only purchase about 200,000 tonnes of Canadian wheat during 2007/08.

 

An official with the State Trading Corporation of India indicated that 1.306 million tonnes of wheat have been imported this year against an expected 5 million tonnes.

 

Violi noted that India prior to the 2006/07 crop year had been competing against Canada in the wheat export market.