Wheat Trade Pt 1

Wheat Trade Pt 1

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
I'm Bob Larson. This year's Washington wheat harvest has at least met, if not exceeded in many cases, expectations for growers who face an uncertain future with regards to international trade and tariffs.

Washington Grain Commission's Scott Yates calls it a double-whammy, saying Chinese tariffs are one thing that weigh on growers, but not being part of pacts like the TPP is another story altogether...

YATES ... "This is like a ticking time bomb for us. I mean, it has not yet come to the point where we are impacted by our absence from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade treaty, but beginning in 2019 probably the tariffs for Canadian and Australian wheat, they are members along with Japan, they will start to come down. And, they are going to decrease to $85 per metric ton whereas U.S. tariffs into Japan will remain at $150 a metric ton."

And, Yates says penciled out, that is a huge annual loss for our growers ...

YATES ... "It has been estimated by U.S. Wheat Associates, that that ultimately will cost growers in the United States $500-million a year. Now that's for all growers, but a large portion of that is going to be born by farmers in the Pacific Northwest."

Yates says that's because Washington wheat growers export

about 90 percent of their crop every year.

Listen tomorrow for more on the toll trade wars could bring to our Northwest wheat growers.

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