U.S. Wheat Industry and Government Officials Work Together to Keep the Dynamic Indonesian Wheat Market Open

The Indonesian Quarantine Agency (IQA) has announced a specific import protocol for U.S. origin wheat that adjusted sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) regulations in ways that will help protect demand for U.S. wheat in one of the world’s largest markets.

These positive changes happened because of cooperation and a shared commitment to transparency between plant protection agencies in both countries and the U.S. wheat industry, said Dalton Henry, Vice President of Policy with U.S. Wheat Associates (USW). That is important because USW expects continued rapid growth in demand for wheat foods including higher quality products favoring flour from U.S. wheat classes.

“U.S. wheat has always met strict Indonesian import requirements,” Henry said. “But in October 2023, Indonesia implemented regulations requiring fumigation of every load of U.S. wheat at use rates that were almost two times the recommended label rates. It was a market disruption we had to address.”

USW teams in Southeast Asia and in Washington, D.C. asked USDA and the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to demonstrate U.S. wheat safety and quality to Indonesian regulators. Communications between APHIS and IQA helped delay the fumigation requirement through much of 2024. Yet the U.S. wheat industry needed to work toward a full resolution of this non-tariff barrier, Henry said, because the risk of added export costs created uncertainty for Indonesian flour millers and U.S. wheat merchandisers.

With help from USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service post, USW and APHIS invited IQA officials to see first-hand how U.S. wheat production and export systems use Best Management Practices to ensure a safe, wholesome supply. An IQA delegation travelled to the United States over six days in December 2024 for extensive demonstrations of how the industry manages pests and enhances wheat quality, and how federal agencies like APHIS and the Federal Grain Inspection Service ensure regulatory compliance and market transparency.

As a result of what the Indonesian regulators learned in the United States and after continued communications with U.S. officials and USW, IQA recommended an easing of import requirements for U.S. wheat that included dropping mandatory, high-rate fumigation. The Indonesian government implemented the changes for U.S. exporters on June 15, 2025.

This effort to demonstrate U.S. wheat safety and quality helped protect sales to Indonesian millers as prices became more competitive from June 2024 through May 2025. U.S. wheat commercial sales in marketing year 2024/25 reached almost 774,000 metric tons compared to more than 437,000 metric tons the previous marketing year.

Tags: Indonesia, wheat, imports, U.S., demand, phytosanitary, sanitary