RENO, Nevada – The scientists at the Canadian Grain Commission haven’t convinced Dan Glickman.
The commission recently issued a formal statement denying the grain disease called TCK is present in any wheat grown on the Prairies and exported by the Canadian Wheat Board.
But U.S. secretary of agriculture Glickman last week refused to back away from his previous statements that TCK is present in some Canadian wheat sold to China.
“I expected some concern to be raised by some of our Canadian friends about that, but based on the information I have, I believe my statements are accurate,” he said at a press conference here last week.
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Glickman made the charge about Canadian wheat during a recent trade mission to China, where he was trying to convince the Chinese to buy American wheat grown and shipped from the Pacific Northwest.
Since 1972 the Chinese have banned wheat imports from that area, saying they don’t want their wheat exposed to the disease, a smut infection more formally known as tilletia controversa kuhn.
Bad science
The Americans say the Chinese are using bad science and there’s no reason to believe crops would be put at risk. They call the ban an unfair trade barrier, because TCK wheat is imported from other countries, including Canada.
The Canadian Wheat Board has said that’s not true and the grain commission has backed the board, saying the disease can’t survive cold prairie winters.
Glickman was asked at the press conference, during the annual convention of the U.S. National Association of Wheat Growers, what information he had to indicate Canadian wheat with TCK has been shipped to China.
“Based upon remarks from the grain trade, we have every reason to believe that wheat that’s produced in the Pacific Northwest is similar in content, quality and character to wheat produced in Canada,” he said.
Winston Wilson, president of U.S. Wheat Associates, a trade promotion organization, said the Chinese themselves have told American grain traders they have found TCK in some shipments of Canadian wheat.
Richard Groundwater, a member of the Canadian Grain Commission attending the NAWG meeting as an observer, was quick to dismiss those comments.
“It’s just posturing and politics,” he said. The disease, which is present only in winter wheat, requires winter temperatures above the freezing mark for six weeks, conditions which don’t exist in the prairies.
Reluctance to change
Wilson blamed the ban on the inflexible nature of the Chinese political system. Once a decision is made, there’s a great reluctance to change it.
“In a system like that, there’s not much reward for doing something new and innovative and there’s a hell of a penalty for screwing up,” he said, adding refusal to lift the ban also reflects “that Oriental face-saving thing.”
Nevertheless, he expressed optimism the ban will be lifted before too long.
