A new year is a great way to clear out the crud from the past year or decade and start afresh: lose some of that fat, forget those old conflicts, take on that hobby that you’ve been talking about, and finally give up on the heroin. Or some version of that typical list of Things To Do in The New Year.
I was hoping 2010 had cleared away one of those lingering annoyances of 2009 that has been vexing us for months: the canola to China problem. When I called the Canola Council of Canada this morning, I hoped to hear that China had begun approving licenses to Chinese importers to bring in Canadian canola, the trade of which has been hung up since mid-November because of China’s quixotic decision to suddenly go intolerant to the disease, the traces of which have always been on Canadian and Australian canola shipped to China. The disease is endemic and hasn’t been a problem.
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In truth, I wouldn’t have thought to call the canola council today if I hadn’t been prompted by my colleagues Sean, Terry and D’arce, my brain being still rusty and woozy from two weeks off and an orgy of holiday feasts and parties and gatherings and 1,000,0000,000 unnecessary calories overloading my system. But their prompt made me wonder: is that problem still lingering on?
The answer, which I got from council president JoAnne Buth, is yes, the problem is still lingering on, and there has been no obvious progress. China weeks ago declared that only ports in non-rapeseed growing provinces could accept foreign canola with blackleg traces, but then said Chinese importers in those ports would need a license first before the foreign devils’ canola came in. Then they said before they could get a license they would need to pass an inspection by China’s version of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. It doesn’t appear that those have occurred yet.
So everything’s still blocked on the path of canola to China, which is a problem, because we have a huge crop to clear and China helped us clear last year’s crop. Without Chinese demand, the ability of the market to soak up that excess canola is reduced. Canola prices are still sprightly and well above where you would have expected them to be once the big crop came in and China went all weird about blackleg. We have soybeans to thank for that. Soybean prices have been strong since harvest and allowed canola prices to piggyback along. Canola’s weak legs won’t be seen as a problem in terms of price until it has to stand on its own, if that ever happens.
One reason soybean prices are so strong is that China is sucking them in voraciously. According to Agricharts this morning, “China continues to be an aggressive buyer of U.S. soybeans and the U.S. has shipped four million metric tonnes of soybeans more than last year at this time.”
Let’s hope that continues. Why the Chinese buy what they do and shun what they do is always a mystery. Being communist allows them to be inscrutable. So we can only guess. Why would they shun Canadian and Australian canola and embrace U.S. soybeans? No one believes blackleg is really the reason, so what is it? Are they trying to kiss-butt to the U.S. of A. and keep the yanks off their backs about the undervalued Yuan and various trade problems? Are they slapping down Stephen Harper because he’s been tough on China’s human rights problems? Are China’s crushers playing some sort of game amongst themselves? Is there internal dispute amongst China’s government regulators and government departments?
We can only guess, and it’s probably not worth our while. As his partner says to Jake Gittes in the movie Chinatown: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” Meaning you’ll never be able to figure it out.
But I hope, for the sake of a cheery 2010, that this one is resolved whether we understand it or not. And after that we can clear away COOL, the Triffid-in-flax problem, salmonella-in-canola and all the other little irritants that made 2009 such an irritating year. It’s a new decade, let’s move on.
Please . . .
