TORONTO – A tiny, insignificant pest continues to hamper a $100 million trade with Canada’s largest pea customer.
Nineteen months ago India surprised the world by insisting pulse imports be certified free of certain pests and placed an additional onus on exporters to fumigate shipments with methyl bromide.
The plant quarantine order sent the Canadian pulse industry into a tizzy because the requirements were unworkable.
Some of the strict regulations have since been softened through extensive government-to-government negotiations but the phytosanitary trade barrier continues to add significant costs to doing business with the world’s largest pulse importer.
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“Certainly it has been a very frustrating experience,” said Brian Rex, grain and field crop specialist with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
The good news is that India has agreed to extend a temporary arrangement allowing fumigation to occur at the port of arrival until March 31, 2006, he told delegates attending the Canadian Special Crops Association’s 2005 annual convention.
Without that agreement, it would be impossible for Canada to meet the stipulations of the order, which require that methyl bromide be applied at temperatures of 28 C and above.
The bad news is that India continues to insist on both certification and fumigation.
Concern unwarranted
Pulse Canada chief executive officer Gord Bacon can’t understand why exporters have to fumigate cargo that is certified to be free of the stem and bulb nematodes the Indians are worried about.
Rex said it is because the Indians don’t trust Canada’s certification system and want a 100 percent assurance the shipments are free of pests, something Canada is unable to provide.
Analysis of 2,200 pea samples taken between January 2004, when the order was implemented, and May 2, 2005, found nematodes in three consignments from Alberta and one from Saskatchewan.
“Every shipment going to India has been looked at and the incidence is less than two-tenths of one percent,” said Bacon.
While that should be low enough to satisfy countries with a legitimate food safety concern, he added, it isn’t good enough for India.
What he finds particularly galling is that the costly certification process is irrelevant if all the shipments are being fumigated anyway, yet India continues to insist on both requirements.
Bacon suspects India may be exacting revenge for the international scrutiny its food exports have faced in the past.
These phytosanitary issues are replacing quotas and tariffs as modern-day trade barriers, Bacon said, not unlike the BSE issue confronting Canadian ranchers.
“There is questionable logic being used to block some of this pulse trade.”
The Canadian government has requested India consider allowing fumigation at the port of arrival as a permanent solution but that request has been denied because India is concerned about the long-term availability and cost of methyl bromide.
Rex said Canada has launched a study to determine if phosphine, a cheaper and more environmentally friendly fumigant, can be substituted for methyl bromide as an effective control for stem and bulb nematodes on peas. The analysis should be complete by April 2006.
Indian plant quarantine officials have been invited to Canada in early autumn to review the phosphine study, visit pea-exporting facilities and continue discussions on the scientific need for fumigation.
But no end is in sight for this longstanding trade irritant.
“Some issues just take a long time on the international stage and this is one of them,” said Bacon.
