AgWired

Canada Western Red Spring wheat can once again enter the United States, duty free. A U.S. tariff that stopped imports of Canada’s largest crop since 2003 has been fully dismantled, cementing a major NAFTA victory for western Canadian farmers. On February 24, the U.S. Customs notified all American ports of entry that imports of Canadian hard red spring wheat are no longer subject to any duties.

“After three long years, the American market is open to our wheat again,” said CWB board chair Ken Ritter, a farmer from Kindersley, Saskatchewan. “Our valued U.S. customers can once more access high-quality wheat from Canada.”

The CWB appealed the American tariff, imposed after the North Dakota Wheat Commission launched an anti-dumping, countervailing duty suit against Canadian wheat in 2002. The NAFTA panel ruled there was “no substantive evidence” to support the claims that led to the 14.2-per-cent tariff, halting Canadian exports to the U.S.

Had the tariff continued to halt Canadian wheat exports into the U.S., it could have cost tens of millions of dollars each year in lost sales opportunities for Prairie farmers, depending on market conditions and grade pattern. In the year before the tariff, the CWB sold about one million tonnes of CWRS into the U.S., worth about $250 million.

Trade harassment from American interest groups has been ongoing since free trade began between the U.S. and Canada in the early 1990s. This last case was the 14th unsuccessful attempt to stop Canadian wheat from entering the U.S. market.

Siemens Says

It looks like Canada’s new Ag Minister is retreating from making changes to the Canadian Wheat Board, at least not quickly. In meeting with CWB officials, Manitoba’s Ag Minister Rosann Wowchuk, and reporters after the meeting, Strahl said, “What I said to the wheat board’s board of directors is the same thing that I’ve been saying publicly . . . that our campaign promise was to move toward dual marketing.”

Strahl also said his controversial plan to let western farmers market their wheat without going through the board won’t happen in the near future. “I don’t anticipate any quick changes to the Canadian Wheat Board, and certainly not without lots of consultation with both farmers and the wheat board.” Some producers feel they could get better prices on their own, and point out that Ontario wheat farmers don’t have to sell through the board. But others, including the National Farmers Union, say an experiment with a voluntary board in the 1930s hurt producers and led to lower prices.

Strahl will discuss the issue further at a meeting of federal, provincial and territorial agriculture ministers, set tentatively for March 20. I’m all for a dual market in Western Canada, but the thing that concerns me is that our American friends want to do away with the CWB too. That’s what doesn’t figure in my books. I’m thinking farmers have an advantage, but the Americans think they have a disadvantage. Go figure!

Siemens Says

The Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute in Humboldt, Saskatchewan hopes to field test a new and improved prototype solid manure injection system this spring.

Beginning with a prototype precision manure applicator that could distribute solid and semi solid manure on the soil surface, engineers at the PAMI have developed a flexible screw conveyer type single injection device that can deliver manure under the soil surface.

Project leader Dr. Hubert Landry says the next step is to fabricate a tool bar attachment that will connect the injection devices onto the existing prototype. “The components development and testing for the injection device itself was completed last fall,” said Landry. “Now, we need to integrate that injection system to our prototype land applicator.”

The researchers added a toolbar attachment at the back of the trailer type implement. That attachment is on a parallel linkage for depth control. “We’re looking at two rows of disc openers and have six of the injection devices that PAMI developed,” he said. “The toolbar attachment at the back of the machine will allow us to bring the manure from the existing distribution system to the disc openers using that injection device which is basically a flexible screw conveyer.”

Landry says fabrication of the components developed last fall will occur in the next two months, to be field-testing as soon as weather allows. He estimates the testing phase will take about two years and a finished prototype for manufacturing at that time.

Siemens Says