NGFA: USDA Will Not Make Changes to Wheat Standards

According to NGFA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) published a Federal Register notice announcing that it will be making no changes to the U.S Standards for Wheat at this time.

AMS published a request for input in April 2021 on whether the U.S. Standards for Wheat practices need to be modified. In comments submitted to the agency, NGFA urged AMS to maintain the current standards without change and supported research and evaluation by the AMS on differentiating between Hard White Spring Wheat (HWS) and Hard White Winter Wheat (HWW).

“Changes to the U.S. grain standards create confusion and uncertainty for market participants and should be avoided unless they can be shown to demonstrably improve or correct significant flaws in the existing standards,” NGFA noted.

“Unless changes are justified based upon these criteria, and provide for proper advance notification and transition, NGFA believes they can be counterproductive – creating a lack of understanding, more uncertainty and increased risk among domestic and international buyers, which may tend to encourage some customers to seek out alternative suppliers in other countries whose grading standards are more stable and predictable.”

AMS announced that it will collaborate with the wheat industry to consider any data and research from interested stakeholders regarding the possibilities, impacts, and potential market acceptance of either merging Hard White Winter and Hard Red Winter (HRW) to create a Hard Winter Wheat class or increasing the allowable Wheat of Other Classes in HRW to 25 percent.