Wheat growers counting on trade deal
Agweek | 20 July 2009
Wheat growers counting on trade deal
Jerry Hagstrom
WASHINGTON — U.S. wheat growers may lose more than 50 percent of $165 million per year in sales to Colombia if Congress does not approve the U.S.-Colombian free trade agreement, U.S. Wheat Associates and Colombian millers said at a July 14 news conference.
Colombia imports 98 percent of the wheat used in its bread and pasta industries and buys 70 percent of its wheat from the United States. Argentina and Canada are Colombia’s other big suppliers.
Purchases from those countries could increase because Colombia has signed a free trade agreement with Mercosur, the South American trade union that includes Argentina, and is hoping to complete an agreement with Canada this fall.
U.S. wheat is subject to a tariff of 10 percent to 15 percent, and it can legally go as high as 124 percent.
“A difference of 10 percent or 20 percent on a tariff can totally swing the trade,” U.S. Wheat Associates President Alan Tracy said.
“We have longstanding ties with the U.S. wheat industry, and we prefer U.S. wheat, but the difference in price in that situation would be impossible to ignore,” said Jaime Jimenez, executive director of Colombia’s National Federation of Wheat Millers.
Hans Hayden, an Arbon, Idaho, wheat producer, said Colombia needs the agreement to assure investors that it will have continued access to the U.S. market for its coffee, flower and sugar exports.
