MAP Funding Helps Guatemalan Flour Millers Stay with U.S. Wheat

U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) invested Market Access Program (MAP) funds to help Guatemalan flour millers reduce their input costs without shifting away from U.S. wheat supplies as export prices increased in 2021.

USW conducts wheat procurement and annual crop quality seminars to inform Central American importers about changes in supplies, market conditions, and logistics that affect U.S. wheat price and availability.

USW’s regional office in Mexico City held two procurement seminars online in September 2021 and a crop quality seminar in October 2021 with Guatemalan millers. Those events informed those customers about the effects of the 2021 Pacific Northwest drought on U.S. soft white (SW) wheat supply and prices compared to increased supplies and quality of U.S. soft red winter (SRW) wheat.

These millers could have looked at origins such as Canada for alternative wheat supplies. Instead, based on the information USW provided in MAP-funded procurement and crop quality seminars, the millers confidently shifted in 2021/22 from U.S. SW to U.S. SRW supplies.

Their purchases since October 2021 through April 2022 of 10,600 metric tons of U.S. SRW wheat returned an estimated $3.45 million to wheat farmers and the export supply chain in such states as Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Missoui.