(Alice McFarlane/farmnewsNOW Staff)

By Alice McFarlane

Canadian canola

China taps third Canadian company for noncompliance

Apr 2, 2019 | 5:23 PM

A third Canadian company has received a single noncompliance notice from China due to alleged pest concerns in canola.

Richardson International and Viterra have already had their canola permits revoked.

Federal Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau acknowledged the news at the House of Commons standing committee on trade as industry officials met discuss the trade dispute with China. Bibeau said she was not at liberty to identify the third company.

“At this time I’m not allowed to share the details on this. But it doesn’t mean they are suspended at this time so obviously we will keep working with them and see how it goes,” she said.

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The Canadian Canola Growers Association (CCGA) administers the cash advance program.

CCGA CEO Rick White told the agriculture committee this morning that cash flow is farmers’ immediate concern. He is asking government to increase the limit from $400,000 to $800,000.

He said they are seeing the signs of concern as farmers are already hitting the program hard.

“Day one of this program we issued 1,236 advances for $116 million out the door in one day,” White said. “This program is on fire and it needs to expand because they’re going to hit the lid on it.”

White said the impact on the agriculture sector right now is the 10 million tonnes of canola in the system already.

“Theoretically if we go forward without China we can expect to have four and half million tonnes of seed we don’t have a home for. That will end up sticking to a farmers bin and end up in a carryout at the end of this year and will cause prices to depress as an abnormally high carryout,” White said. “We’re probably in maybe for another 20 to 21 million tonne crop on top of this as well. But the real question is without China we don’t have a home necessarily for that four and a half to 4.8 million tonnes of seed.”

Finding other markets for Canadian canola would be a difficult task.

Kyle Jeworski President and CEO of Viterra said it’s important to note canola requires a significant amount of capital investment in destination markets because it’s going into crush facilities and turned into oil and canola meal.

“When we talk about diversification it can’t happen overnight because it requires that amount of capital to be put into these markets to be able to handle the canola,” Jeworski said. “It requires a lot of foresight planning to be able to able to actually talk about diversification.”

Fred Gorrell with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency walked the committee through communications with the Chinese since the first notification of a problem in January.

He was asked if he was absolutely certain of the quality of Canadian canola.

“Yes. The short answer is science is never 100 per cent sure. You know how we can detect things at the million and billion parts. I have a strong confidence in what we’re doing and that’s a conversation I’d like to have with them face to face,” he said.

Canola Council of Canada President Jim Everson said Canada needs to use all of the means at its disposal starting with a meeting with Chinese officials.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: AliceMcF