International Update from OWGA’s Tim Bartram

Straight from the horses mouth…
We started the morning meeting with the embassy personal from ag, commerce and commercial sections. From there we met with the Director of the Columbian Millers Association and some of his board members. They talked about the wheat they purchased and how it performed. A lot of the time was about the need to ratify the Free Trade Agreement and how much market share the US would lose. From there we talked to representatives of ADM, they had the same message on the free trade agreement. After that we talked to the head of a buying group made up of several small and medium sized mills again the message was the same on the free trade agreement. We then went and toured a flour mill and pasta plant. It was as nice and modern as any in the US. They strange thing was they were making their lower cost noodles out of hard red winter not durum wheat. When then met the gentleman from the buying group and he took us to his father- in laws ranch were they raise fighting bulls. There were pictures of bulls from the late 1800’s there.