October 23, 2009

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has scheduled a conference call with the grain trade Friday morning to potentially discuss new regulations on canola business to China, industry participants confirmed.

 

Debbie Belanger, manager of communications with the Canola Council of Canada, said the council found out from the CFIA Wednesday that "China is requiring a phytosanitary certificate for blackleg-free canola by Nov. 15."

 

Blackleg is a fungal disease that can cause significant yield loss in canola.

 

She said the council was now working with the CFIA and was hopeful that a plan for moving forward would be in place by Monday. Belanger said it was still too early to say what the impact of the new requirements from China would have on the canola trade.

 

A market analyst said the speculation was that China would impose new regulatory reforms on imports of Canadian canola. He noted that China had recently had problems with blackleg in shipments from Australia and will likely be extending any regulations that came out of that situation to Canada.

 

Commercial buyers backed away sharply from the ICE Futures Canada canola futures market on Thursday given the uncertainty of the China situation, said the analyst. "We don't know what will happen yet, it's all rumour and innuendo," he said.

 

China is one of the largest customers for Canadian canola, and any disruption to trade there would be a major blow to the sector.

 

The CFIA confirmed a conference call was taking place Friday morning, but didn't provide any further details.