January 18, 2011

US to ease restrictions on Canadian rapeseed meal

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) looks to ease restrictions on imports of animal feed with salmonella bacteria, which subsequently allowed Canada to increase its rapeseed meal exports to US.

The FDA posted a draft policy on its website last August that would limit its enforcement actions against animal feed shipments with salmonella to just a few types of the bacteria known to cause disease in animals and poultry, instead of flagging all shipments with salmonella.

It is unclear when the FDA's new policy takes effect, but Canadian rapeseed meal shipments to the United States rose 17% from August through October, Statistics Canada says.

FDA imposed shipping restrictions in the past two years against seven Canadian crushing plants whose rapeseed meal exports contained salmonella, although only two plants are still on import-alert status.

The companies involved (Richardson International, Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus and Viterra), of course support the new policy, although Viterra and ADM plants are still under import restrictions.

"Changes in enforcement will not affect the FDA's process of lifting measures already in place," said Dave Hickling, vice-president of utilization for the Rapeseed Council of Canada.

Canada is the world's top exporter of rapeseed, which is crushed for its oil and meal. Shipments to the United States fell nearly one-third to 1.2 million tonnes worth CAD246 million (US$248.7 million) during the 2009/10 crop year, which ended on July 31.