Global buyers of quality wheat face disappointment in Canada - Buyers looking to Canada for high-quality wheat to make bread as drought roils output in the northern United States may be thwarted, as dry weather has also hit crops there. Wheat plants with the high protein content needed to bake bread have shrivelled in the United States, one of the world's top exporters, creating a rare tight spot in a world awash with grain after four years of bumper harvests. Supplies are so short and demand so strong that the United States itself could rack up its third-highest level of wheat imports in the year from June 1, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The biggest importers of U.S. high protein spring wheat are Japan and the Philippines, and they are already shopping around. Just this month, buyers from the Philippines who are normally U.S. customers bought three Canadian spring wheat cargoes for autumn delivery, said Rhyl Doyle, director of export trading at Winnipeg-based Paterson Grain. But in the southern Canadian Prairies, some farmers are giving up on failed spring wheat crops, said Larry Weber, president of Saskatchewan-based Weber Commodities. "There are some absolutely horrible crops. We're not going to have an average crop in Western Canada," he said. Poor crop conditions drove prices for high quality spring wheat this month to four-year highs on the Minneapolis Grain Exchange (MGEX). Nearby September futures traded at a rare premium to deferred December for most of June and early July, with the nearby contract peaking on July 5 at a premium of more than 35 cents a bushel. The spread has since eased, with September closing Tuesday at a slight 2-3/4 cent discount to the December, due in part to farmers and grain elevators moving old-crop supplies of spring wheat into domestic milling and export channels. "The market is saying, 'Give me your wheat, now,'" said Austin Damiani, who trades MGEX spring wheat futures. The USDA this month forecast supplies of U.S. spring wheat left at the end of the marketing year on May 31, 2018, at 122 million bushels. That would be the smallest since 2007-2008 when MGEX prices soared to an all-time high above $24 a bushel
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