Philippine Trade Team - Connecting the Dots from Field to Mill

Scott Huso, NDWC District 5 board representative (3rd from the right), hosted the team at his farm. NDWC Vice Chairman Aaron Kjelland and his son (3rd and 4th from the left) were also able to join the team at the farm.

The team enjoyed visiting the new Peltier Complex where they were able to see the new NDSU wheat quality labs and learn about educational opportunities at NCI.

By: Erica Olson

Posted: September 8, 2025

The Philippines is the largest customer of U.S. hard red spring wheat (HRS), with annual average purchases of 50 million bushels. The purchases of HRS, along with large quantities of soft white and hard red winter wheat put recent sales near $1 billion annually. When representatives of some of the largest milling operations in the Philippines country visit, it is truly an honor. A U.S. Wheat Associates (USW) sponsored trade team made a stop in North Dakota in early August, after visiting Oregon and Nebraska.

Trade team visits provide the opportunity to build and maintain relationships with customers, an important component of the wheat business, especially in an ever increasingly competitive world market. While the U.S. maintains a substantial market share in the Philippines, it cannot be taken for granted. The visit allowed important information exchange on topics such as the current state of the spring wheat crop in terms of supplies and price, HRS quality and research efforts, breeding priorities for current and future HRS varieties, educational opportunities at NCI, and transportation and logistic topics.

As always, a highlight for this team was visiting with spring wheat producers. ND and MN producer board members joined the group for dinner one evening and the team had the opportunity to visit the Scott Huso farm near Aneta, ND. The group spent hours learning about farming methods, viewing field equipment and sharing information about their businesses with producers. As one team member put it, “now we have the full picture of how the entire U.S. system works. Visiting the farm was a key component to helping us better understand the whole process.”