The U.S. government last week awarded contracts worth $26.5 million for the purchase and transport of 75,800 metric tons of soft white wheat to Yemen as food aid.

The wheat is slated to be shipped the first half of February, according to USDA.

Yemen is a “changing market” for U.S. wheat over the last decade, said Dalton Henry, vice president of policy at U.S. Wheat Associates, the overseas marketing arm of the industry.

“It’s a significant thing when they purchase,” Henry said.

In the past 20 years, customers in Yemen would regularly purchase 500,000 to 700,000 tons of soft white wheat per year.

Over the past five years, as the country’s economy has struggled in the face of war and political instability.

Food aid from the USDA and the U.S. Agency for International Development now represents about half of U.S. sales to the country, Henry said.

Ongoing instability doesn’t suggest Yemen will soon return to being a fully commercial customer, he added.

“To a certain extent, we would expect there to still be a very substantial need for donational wheat,” he said. 

Commercial and food aid purchases for Yemen are almost exclusively U.S. soft white wheat, which is primarily grown in the Pacific Northwest.

A purchase to Yemen “is always a big deal, because you never know for sure when they’re going to purchase,” said Glen Squires, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission.

Yemen is typically the fifth largest user of soft white wheat, Squires said.

“That’s a very important market demand,” he said. “They like our soft white wheat because it’s easy for them to use without going through big flour mills. It’s easier to get out to people and their small mills to use for their flatbreads.”

Consumers in Yemen store whole wheat in their homes. When flour is needed, small quantities of wheat are taken to a small custom mill and ground into whole wheat flour. This flour is used to make traditional products baked at home in a tandoor oven, according to U.S. Wheat.

Due to safety concerns, U.S. Wheat and the grain commission communicate with the food aid programs, rather than customers in Yemen, Squires said.

U.S. Wheat works with USDA and USAID to ensure wheats are appropriate for a particular market, Henry said.

“You think about the need to get food to hungry people, wheat is a natural choice,” Henry said. “It pretty consistently will be the single largest commodity purchased by the U.S. government for donation.”  

Total food aid donations would be a top 10 market for the U.S., Henry said. He cites “significant” purchases of soft white wheat for Yemen and several purchases of 500,000 tons of hard red winter for Ethiopia.

Total donational purchases have recently reached roughly 800,000 to 900,000 tons each year, he said. 

In November, USAID purchased nearly 66,000 metric tons of wheat, worth $20 million, to help reduce flour and bread shortages in Sudan, after sanctions were lifted. With restrictions eased, Henry says Sudan could become a recipient market this year.

In the last year, the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service has purchased more than 439,000 metric tons of food aid for Yemen, including vegetable oil, whole green peas, navy beans and six soft white wheat purchases.