Canada’s pulse industry has been slapped with another in what seems to be a never-ending stream of non-tariff trade barriers.
Pulse Canada and the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council issued a joint news release Friday warning growers of a new market access issue that could affect $110 million of annual Canadian lentil trade with the European Union.
The new trade barrier deals with maximum residue limits for glyphosate in lentil shipments. Red flags were raised when a shipment of organic lentils from Turkey to Europe was found to exceed the EU’s tolerance levels.
The concern in North America’s pulse industry is that the EU’s tolerance for glyphosate in lentils is 0.1 parts per million, which is well below Canada’s maximum residue limit (MRL) of 4 ppm and the U.S. limit of 5 ppm.
“Europe is an important market for North American lentils and we need to ensure that there are workable solutions in place for the trade to address the differences in glyphosate tolerances,” said Pulse Canada chief executive officer Gordon Bacon.
Tim McGreevy, chief executuve of the USA Dry Pea and Lentil Council, said Canada and the U.S. are working together to submit an application to the EU to establish an MRL more in line with those that exist in North America. But the EU review process could take a year or more.
Garth Patterson, executive director of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, said the Turkish incident will have implications for Canadian exports to the region.
“We’re surprised and concerned but we’re not panicking. We need to collect more information,” he said.
Bacon estimated that the majority of North America’s lentils in the supply chain will have no detectable level of glyphosate because the bulk of the crop is not treated with the product.
No cargos of Canadian lentils have been affected but the incident has impacted trade to the region due to the risk of a cargo being rejected.
Canada exported 57,762 tonnes of lentils to Western Europe through the first six months of the 2010-11 marketing campaign, which represents about 10 percent of total lentil sales for that period.
News of the new non-tariff trade barrier comes less than two months after Pulse Canada announced it had resolved a longstanding market access issue with China regarding selenium residue.
