Farmers feeling repercussions of trading spat

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/03/2019 (2009 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Craig Riese, one of the 43,000 Western Canadian farmers who produce about 20 million tonnes of canola every year, can already feel the effects of the news this week that China, Canada’s largest canola export customer, has halted Canadian canola imports.

“Any time your number one exporting customer tells you they are not interested in your product, you have to be concerned,” Riese said.

But there are degrees of concern.

Riese typically splits his 5,500 acre farm evenly between cereals and oilseeds and while he said he may “tighten up” some of the traditional oilseed acres into cereal, it likely will not be a significant alteration.

“We can’t really deviate that much from what we do year to year,” he said. “I can move a few hundred acres here and there and if we all do it, it will definitely bring the total acres down.”

Canola prices have come down recently, a price correction, Riese believes, that is at least partially because of an oversupply of the oilseed on the market right now irrespective of the Chinese market issues.

Jim Everson, the CEO of the Winnipeg-based Canola Council of Canada, said while he believes China remains a strong and important long-term customer for Canadian canola there are other countries “who value high quality Canadian canola.”

“But we think the fundamentals of our trade with China are very strong,” Everson said.

Riese said there are other markets for Canadian canola and he is taking the attitude that the sky is not necessarily falling.

“This won’t get resolved tomorrow but hopefully it’s not a long-term thing,” he said. “Things will move. We have a robust crushing industry in the province, thank goodness. I have a lot of canola in my bins, no doubt, but we’ll market it.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca