SASKATOON – After opening briefly this summer, the border is expected to remain closed to U.S. barley until at least May 1995.
When it brought in the continental barley market on Aug. 1, the former Conservative government also unilaterally dropped import licence requirements on U.S. barley and barley products moving north.
It did so even though figures showed U.S. barley growers were receiving substantially higher government subsidies than their Canadian counterparts.
When the continental market was thrown out by the courts six weeks later, the import licences were put back in place.
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Now the two countries have resumed the normal procedure for figuring out whether the border will be open or closed next year. It’s all laid out in the free trade agreement, which requires the two governments to calculate each year how much taxpayer support goes to their barley farmers.
If the subsidies are found to be higher in Canada than in the U.S. over the previous two years, then import licences on barley and barley products must be dropped.
Last year U.S. subsidies were found to be 53 percent of the total value of the crop, while in Canada they were just 23 percent.
“We would have to reverse those numbers to have a two-year average of us higher than them,” said Chuck Craddock of Agriculture Canada.
And that’s extremely unlikely. While saying he didn’t want to speculate about the outcome of the calculation, Craddock added he couldn’t think of any changes in support payments on either side of the border that would produce such a huge turnaround.
“We haven’t put in any new programs and they are still using the Export Enhancement Program for barley sales,” he said. The EEP accounted for 58 percent of total U.S. government support in 1991.
By Jan. 1, the two governments were required to give to each other all the available data on barley support payments for last year (crop year 1992-93 for Canada and calendar year 1992 for the U.S.).
By April 1, the total level of support is to be figured out. Each side has 30 days to question each other’s numbers, with the final result announced by May 1.
