SASKATOON – A Chinese ban on importing winter wheat from the American Pacific Northwest has U.S. wheat growers crying foul.
But Canadian grain industry officials say claims by U.S. growers that Canada is getting special treatment from the Chinese are groundless.
The U.S. National Association of Wheat Growers has complained to the American government that China has erected a non-tariff trade barrier by allowing zero tolerance for wheat affected by a dwarf bunt disease known as TCK.
The wheat growers say China is applying the restrictions in a discriminatory manner inconsistent with recently-adopted world trade rules, and point to their declining share of the Chinese wheat market as evidence.
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“While U.S. sales to China have slowed, exports from competitors, in particular Canada, have increased,” NAWG president Judy Olson said in a letter to U.S. trade representative Mickey Kantor. “Inasmuch as Canada’s winter wheat is also subject to the same disease problem, the Chinese prohibition on the entry of U.S. wheat is arbitrary and unjustified.”
But Canadian industry officials say the U.S. complaints make no sense. Julian Thomas, an Agriculture Canada researcher specializing in winter wheat, said TCK is not present in the winter wheat grown on the Canadian prairies.
“We are not exporting wheat to China that has dwarf bunt,” said Thomas.
In fact, Canada is not exporting any winter wheat to China. Canadian Wheat Board information officer Deborah Harri said the board’s sales in 1992-93 and 1993-94 were made up entirely of spring wheat.
