Optimism In The Durum Market

Feb 04, 2020

Producers taking part in the recent Durum Summit in Swift Current learned there’s reason for optimism going forward with everything from the breeding side to the marketing side.

While 2019 was a challenging year, and quality of the crop is quite variable, we should see some good marketing opportunities ahead.

Neil Townsend with FarmLink Marketing Solutions thinks a key market to watch for in the last quarter of the marketing year will be the US.

“If they kind of perceive that their crop is not getting off to a good start or plantings are not where they want them to be or the weather conditions are not, they might increase their buying phase for our ending stocks and even take more ownership of potential new products at probably pretty strong prices.”

He thinks we’ll also see some good market opportunities going into Europe, Italy and Turkey.

Townsend says when you look at some of our key durum markets and you take a slightly longer view to say 2030 or 2050 we continue to see more marketing opportunities in durum.

“The countries that are durum markets, they still have tangible population growth, Algeria and Turkey, Morocco, even the United States. Whereas, a lot of countries were exporting other products to they have more of the reverse demographics going on. Where people are getting older, and are starting to consume less, there are just fewer people.”

Click here to see more...

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.