Wheat Farmers Will Get Break With U.S. Purchase Plan

President Clinton will buy $250 million worth of U.S. wheat and then send it overseas to help wheat farmers.

In a public radio address last weekend, Clinton said he told the U.S. Department of Agriculture to take more than 80 million bushels of surplus wheat off the hands of farmers. Anything will help, they say, since they are struggling under the burdens of low wheat prices and a surplus left over from last year.

The grain will be used for the Food for Peace program and sent to countries in need, such as Indonesia, North Korea and Sudan.

“The announcement will boost wheat prices and provide much-needed assistance to wheat growers here in Washington,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

Washington and Idaho’s wheat growers are facing record low prices and slow markets in Asia because of a currency crisis there.

But most of the wheat in the U.S. purchase won’t come from the Northwest, say agriculture insiders.

The USDA will likely buy the hard wheat used in making bread rather than soft white wheat varieties that are predominantly grown in Washington and Idaho and are used to make confections.

“But under the philosophy that all ships rise when the tide comes in, this will be good for us,” said Tom Mick, executive director of the Washington Wheat Commission.

The purchase could raise wheat prices as much as 13 cents a bushel.

“It sounds like a lot of wheat, but actually it’s very small,” Mick said. “We’d like to see more of this sort of thing. We definitely need to get rid of these burdensome surpluses.”

Agriculture has become a hot topic in Washington, D.C. Last week Clinton signed into law an emergency Export Relief Act that allows Pakistan to participate in a U.S. loan program to buy wheat. Pakistan’s status in the program had been jeopardized by sanctions set by the Clinton administration when the country conducted several nuclear bomb tests in June.

After the relief act went into effect, Pakistan agreed to buy 300,000 tons of wheat, much of which will come from the Northwest.

And this month, in the wake of farm troubles across the country, many politicians are scurrying to sponsor and support new agriculture-friendly legislation.

“That reflects the efforts by many people at local, state and federal levels to share concerns about hard times being faced by growers,” said Alex McGregor, president of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers.