Sharon Hart dotted all her i’s and crossed all her t’s when filling out an Own Use Import application to bring in 3,000 litres of glyphosate from the United States.
She sent the form before the Sept. 30 application deadline.
“Now the Pest Management Regulatory Agency is not willing to recognize our import permit and they’re holding our chemical in the States and they won’t let it across the border,” said the Hines Creek, Alta., farmer.
Hart is one of approximately 400 producers who have paid for product but won’t be receiving it this year because the PMRA abruptly terminated the 2006 program on Oct. 12 after determining there had been a prairie-wide killing frost.
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Glenn Caleval, vice-president of Farmers of North America, the company co-ordinating most of the ClearOut 41 Plus imports through the OUI program, said there is a minimum of $6 million worth of chemical sitting in a warehouse in the U.S. ready to be shipped to Canada.
He noted the PMRA stated in a July 27 Western Producer article that it takes 30 days to process an application, which is why the agency established a Sept. 30 deadline to get permit approvals in place for late fall glyphosate use.
Caleval said the agency is using the killing frost as an excuse to terminate the program early and sour farmers on using the OUI program.
“I honestly believe that it’s part of their strategy to discredit the existing OUI program. They are fully committed to getting rid of the OUI program,” he said.
Karen McCullagh, director of compliance and regional operations with the PMRA, said the ClearOut label stipulates the product is not to be used after a killing frost.
Once the agency determined there had been such an event by consulting various web-based weather sites, it couldn’t, in good conscience, continue granting permits to bring the glyphosate across the border.
“We didn’t want to be party to that, knowing that a killing frost had already occurred,” said McCullagh.
The decision to halt approvals leaves Hart out $12,750, the amount of the cheque she wrote to a U.S. chemical company for three big plastic totes of ClearOut 41. It was to be used for fall burnout of thistle and other weeds.
She doesn’t appreciate the tactics of the regulator.
“Our take on that is they have not got the right to tell us how to manage our business,” said Hart, noting that she can buy a rival product like Touchdown from a local Agricore United dealer and apply it any time she wants.
Caleval said a killing frost isn’t a blanket event. Each plant has a different tolerance to cold and thistle is particularly hardy. He said it should be up to farmers to decide if they want to use the product and he chastised the agency for pulling the rug out from under them without warning.
McCullagh said FNA should have known this was coming. The agency had been returning permits to the company when the proposed importation date exceeded Oct. 15, the expected date of the first killing frost.
“It shouldn’t have been a surprise because we went through this last year.”
But Caleval said the correspondence arrived too late to act upon and he scolded the agency for its failure to publicize the expected frost date in a forum other than a letter.
Hart said she is left with the prospect of having to replace her order with more expensive chemical purchased through local retailers.
She has received no official word on what will happen with the order in limbo.
“I definitely want my product, whether it’s now or in the spring or whenever.”
McCullagh said growers will be able to get their product in the spring, whether it be through the existing OUI program or a new pilot program called the Grower Requested Own Use import program.
“We’ll have one or the other in place,” she said.
If for some reason farmers are not able to bring their product across the border in the spring, Caleval said FNA will try to sell the chemical in the U.S. to ensure its members are reimbursed.
