That’s a lot of bread. That’s a lot of beer.
During the 49 years that the Canadian Wheat Board has been selling wheat and barley to China, sales have involved more than 120 million tonnes.
The board says that is enough to make 279 billion loaves of bread and 55 billion bottles of beer.
“It has been an incredibly important market for us and for western Canadian farmers,” said CWB chief operating officer Ward Weisensel, whose business card features English on one side and Chinese on the other.
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The Chinese market has also been an important instrument of Canadian foreign policy and diplomacy.
In 1961, Canada under prime minister John Diefenbaker was the first western country to open trade with what was then called Communist China by agreeing to let the CWB sell 40 million bushels of grain to the isolated country and then extending the contact by allowing sales to China on credit.
Nine years later, Canada became the first western industrialized country to establish diplomatic relations with China.
“The wheat board recognized China before Canada did,” Liberal CWB minister Otto Lang quipped when diplomatic ties were established.
In 1961, China under the radical regime of Mao Zedong was experiencing an economic crash and famine.
“At the time, the commissioner of the board saw a humanitarian need and then a chance for a long-term business relationship,” Weisensel said. “It was an important moment.”
He said the Chinese still remember the Canadian decision to sell wheat to a starving nation.
“That first business is something brought up by the Chinese each and every time we visit China,” he said.
“On my first visit in 1993, it caught me off guard how profound that issue was for them. All these years later, it still is raised on every visit.”
Weisensel and Haiguang Shi, general manager of the wheat board’s office in Beijing, were in Ottawa March 8 to take part in a reception and ceremony marking 40 years of diplomatic relations between Ottawa and Beijing.
“We’re here because grain trade has been such an important part of that relationship,” he said. “That decision in 1961 was an incredibly important first step. It established a very strong relationship that has endured.”
The Chinese market has changed. The country’s grain production has expanded and imports have decreased. Still, Weisensel said market analysts expect the country with a population of at least 1.3 billion will continue to be an important market for Canadian wheat.
Despite competition from other grain exporters, Canada continues to account for as much as 40 percent of imports in some years.
“Our plan is to be positioned as a primary supplier if an opportunity or need arises,” Weisensel said.
The export focus is high protein red spring wheat, which often is mixed with lower grade wheat from other countries. The CWB is operating a pilot project with Chinese retailer Guchuan Food Co. to distribute bags of Canadian premium flour milled in Canada but packaged in China to give consumers a taste of the pure product.
“We want to give Chinese consumers access to 100 percent Canadian flour,” said Shi, who hopes demand will grow if they see the difference.
The picture is also rosy on the malting barley side. Canadian malting barley sales now average 386,000 tonnes each year.
“Canadian barley is in the grist of every top brand of beer in the Chinese market,” Weisensel said. “And China is a huge market for beer.”
