Published 11:59 am Wednesday, June 4, 2025
The global wheat market has changed dramatically since Vince Peterson first entered the business 51 years ago.
“We saw the European Union go from about a 20 million-ton importer of wheat to a 30 million-ton exporter of wheat over about a 25-year period, a 50 million-ton shift,” Peterson told the Capital Press during a June 3 Zoom interview. “Then we saw the Soviet Union do the same thing, from about a 20 million-ton importer to a 50 million-ton exporter; that’s about a 70 million-ton shift from importer to exporter.”
Peterson, 72, has worked for U.S. Wheat for 40 years, including the last eight years as president.
U.S. Wheat’s vice president of overseas operations, Mike Spier, will take over as president July 1.
Peterson will remain for a month as past president to help with the transition.
Peterson and other U.S. Wheat representatives recently returned from back-to-back conferences in Vietnam for overseas customers. The first week was for North Asia customers, and the second was for Southeast Asia customers.
“Our message overall was a legacy of trade, a legacy of supply,” he said. “We’ve had seven decades of work out there. Our part is to make that an even 100 years, and beyond.”
The world population will hit about 10 billion in the next 25 years, Peterson said. That will put global wheat consumption, currently about 800 million tons, at 1 billion tons, and increase trade by 50%, more than 100 million more tons in trade.
“My question going forward, and I don’t know if I have the answer to this: Is there another shift out there some place that’s going to accommodate that, and/or if not, where is the extra production and capacity to export another 100 million tons?” Peterson said. “Bottom line for us: A tremendous opportunity out there for the U.S. wheat industry to grow if we can put all of the elements together to do that.”
U.S. wheat prices have been on a downward trend over the past marketing year.
Peterson said the global market has a “healthy balance,” with few production problems. Tariffs and trade uncertainty had a small impact on the market, “a little more psychologically in the early stages than it was functionally.”
The initial proposal to impose port fees on Chinese manufacturers and China-built ships had a bigger effect, he said. The Trump administration made changes that solved most of the problem, but it delayed some new crop purchases, Peterson said.
Today, stocks in the major wheat-exporting countries are near a 15-year low. It wouldn’t take much of a problem area somewhere to have an effect, Peterson said.
“We’re in a narrow balance at the moment — we’re not happy about the prices, but I think we’ve probably taken most of the wind out of the sails for this downturn,” he said. “I think we’re probably at the bottom end in terms of prices.”
In four of the last six or seven years, less wheat has been produced in the world than has been consumed.
“The big question mark is, where do we end up with China?” Peterson said. “That trade agreement, if it’s even going to come, is a long ways away.”
Traditional demand is stable in North and South Asia, Mexico and South America. More business in China and Africa would present opportunities, Peterson said.
Markets have been more volatile in recent years, even going back to the early to mid-2000s.
Peterson thinks it’s more a sign of the times than any one thing now.
“Compared to when I was a young guy in the business and the markets would move a few cents over a week, now we have a few cents in a second or a minute, and 10-cent to 30-cent ranges in days,” he said.
Participants in the market have changed, he said, pointing to managed money and computer trading, which he expects to increase with artificial intelligence.
“It’s really beyond the commercial operators — the farmers, grain handlers, exports and customers” he said. “So much more of it is being driven by what’s going on elsewhere in the financial markets and commodities.”
The only way to really expand the industry is by expanding production and investing in technology, Peterson said.
Wheat is behind corn and soybeans in biotechnology and biofuels.
Acreage could increase slightly, but “it’s got to come in terms of taking our yields to new heights, without abandoning the quality,” Peterson said.
“We’re not going to be the cheapest wheat seller, we’re going to be a premium wheat seller… the two-pronged development of getting more bushels out of the acre while maintaining or improving the end-use quality is probably the goal going forward,” he said.
Market acceptance remains a question mark, Peterson said.
Argentina’s genetically-modified HB4 wheat has been approved for deregulation in the U.S. Buyer confidence in this and other traits and technologies will be important going forward, he said.
For Peterson, the timing is right to retire.
“One of my personal goals was to have the organization in a place both financially and with personnel that I felt were just the top of the chain and the best place to carry the organization completely forward into the future, and we are absolutely there,” he said.
Peterson said U.S. Wheat’s staff is full of “self-starters carrying huge workloads.”
He praised the board’s decision to bring in Spier as “fantastic.”
“We’re just in a really great place,” he said. “It’s a good time for me to let the next generation run.”
He plans to spend more time with his wife, children and grandchildren.
Peterson’s message to overseas customers: “We’re in this together … we are partners joined at the hip. It’s to both of our needs and benefits to approach these things together.”
Peterson thanked wheat farmers for the opportunity to work for them for so many years.
“I can’t think of another group that is more tolerant, more risk-averse, more positive in their outlook and optimism,” he said. “Each year they put that crop on the ground, do their best on the technology side and hope and pray we’re going to come out with something on the other end. I think that perseverance is going to pay well going forward.”
