This year, a grower from District 2 will be eligible to serve a new, five-year term on the Idaho Wheat Commission (IWC). The new term will begin July 1, 2023. Are you interested? For more information contact Idaho Grain: ssatterlee@idahograin.org

April marks the beginning of Stress Awareness Month, designed to bring awareness to the negative impacts of stress.The National Institutes of Health states that knowing how to manage stress can improve mental and physical well-being as well as minimize exacerbation of health-related issues.

Early winter wheat entries into the National Wheat Yield Contest are eligible for a drawing for a free one-year Business Plan subscription to Bushel Farm (formerly FarmLogs)! . Get your entries in to be eligible for this fantastic prize!

Peter Laudeman, US Wheat Associates director of trade policy, has spent a lot of time on the US International Food Aid Program. He says a program takes surplus commodities and donates them to other countries that have dire hunger situations. He points out that the 2023 Farm Bill does have a section for food aid and US Wheat wants to ensure that wheat does not lose its place in food aid donations. “What we've seen over kind of the life of these international food assistance programs is a shift from what used to be about 100% donated US commodity to commodities to those in need. And now we've kind of chipped away over a series of barbells.."

The seasonal return of the US Department of Agriculture’s weekly national Crop Progress report revealed the condition of the US winter wheat crop deteriorated over the months of dormancy since the report went into hibernation last fall. The USDA on April 3 issued its first national Crop Progress report since Nov. 27, 2022. The report compiles information some state USDA offices had started issuing a few weeks earlier with new data for a comprehensive report for the 18 major winter wheat growing states. Winter wheat, which was seeded last fall for harvest in 2023, conditions were in worse shape than in the final report of 2022 (for the 2023 crop) and compared with the 2022 US crop as it emerged from dormancy a year earlier.

U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) and the National Association of Wheat Growers (NAWG) today praised the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) for submitting a counter-notification on India’s wheat and rice subsidies to the WTO April 6, 2023. The filing on the WTO website can be seen here. Like another filing on the same commodities in 2018, this U.S. counter-notification shows India does not report the true level of support it provides to its farmers. Unlike the 2018 counter-notification, five other wheat or rice exporter countries joined the United States in this filing: Australia; Canada; Paraguay; Thailand; and Ukraine.

Over the last few weeks, U.S. Wheat Associates has analyzed several factors that are shifting or have the potential to shift U.S. wheat value toward wheat importers. A combination of lower futures prices, a break in dry bulk freight prices, an increase in planted area, and the potential for a weaker dollar all point to a wheat market that has turned to favor buyers after two years of price risk. Though it is the most unpredictable of all the factors influencing U.S. wheat prices, the weather is arguably the most critical component in determining U.S. wheat production and price.