Transportation troubles bother someone else for once
Headlines talked about a rail strike causing serious disruptions to grain shipments.
There was the spectre of a backlog of ships waiting in harbor, with the demurrage bills mounting.
The strike couldn’t come at a worse time because the wheat board had a big shipping push planned in the coming month.
It all sounded so familiar, but for once, it wasn’t happening here.
The strike was in Australia where train drivers had been staging intermittent strikes in Western Australia for two weeks over the terms of their employment, affecting passenger and freight services.
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“There’s quite serious problems looming because they’re running out of grain to ship,” Barry Court, president of the Pastoralists and Graziers Association, told the Reuters News Agency last week.
It appears the strike is now settled and unfortunately, the wire services carried little about what caused it and the real level of damage to grain shipments.
But it is perhaps a little comforting to know Canada is not the only country that suffers disruptions in its grain transportation system.
Here is some other news out of Australia of the “thank goodness that’s not happening here” variety.
Bangladesh has banned the importation of Australian vetch because on some shipments vetch was substituted for lentils.
There are fears other Middle Eastern countries will take similar action and ban imports of lentils from Australia.
Lentils and vetch are similar in appearance in their red split form.
It is widely accepted that both crops may be safely used for human consumption. However, the soaking water used for vetch must be discarded to reach this level of safety. Otherwise, vetch may cause a build-up of toxins in the human brain, which some people claim may eventually lead to blindness.
It is suggested that for safe human consumption, the user must be fully aware of this cooking stipulation.
But some marketers have sold vetch under the guise of lentils to attract a higher price, to avoid importation duties or simply to sell larger quantities of the grain.
Australian authorities have investigated and prosecuted traders for misrepresenting shipments of vetch and avoiding duties.
Authorities such as Pulse Australia have taken steps to ensure both grains leave the country correctly labeled, and have instituted a quality assurance program.
But the issue has damaged the Australian pulse industry’s reputation as it competes with Canada and other pulse producers in the world’s growing pulse trade.
