Sask. farmers leaving canola in the bin during Chinese canola dispute

WATCH: Harvest is wrapped up in many parts of the province, but farmers are still waiting for meaningful updates on Chinese canola tariffs.

With harvest complete in nearly every part of the province, Saskatchewan farmers have turned their attention towards Chinese canola tariffs.

Without any meaningful updates, many farmers are waiting before marketing and selling their crop.

“It’s just not as easy as a stroke of a pen to get rid of them, but we have been frustrated with the lack of support,” Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) president Bill Huber said.

Canola prices have seen a sharp drop since China announced a 100 per cent tariff on Canadian canola oil and meal and a 75.8 per cent tariff on canola seed over the last year.

The tariffs came in response to Canada’s 100 per cent tariffs on all EVs imported from China since last October.

Canada also has 25 per cent tariffs in place on Chinese steel and aluminum.

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Huber says many farmers are choosing to leave their canola in the bin until market conditions improve, and the strained trade relations are creating even more unease this fall for an industry surrounded by uncertainty.

“This is the first year in 55 years that I’ve farmed that we have never sold a bushel of canola off the combine,” Huber said. “We are optimists, and we are realists, and we need this market back.”

Ambassador Wang Di made the comments in an exclusive interview with CTV Question Period last week, telling host Vassy Kapelos through a translator that China will “reciprocate accordingly” if Canada removes the “unilateral unjustified tariffs” on Chinese products.

Prime Minister Mark Carney wouldn’t say if he would drop the tariffs at a separate announcement on Thursday as he faces pressure from premiers on the prairies to defend canola producers, while facing equal pressure from Ontario premier Doug Ford to defend the auto sector.

“It’s almost like being in an episode of the movie Hunger Games,” Keith Willoughby, the Dean of Edwards School of Business at the University of Saskatchewan, said.

“You’ve obviously you’ve got two very strong industries, and the job as a Prime Minister now to balance these two very large, dominant industries in the country.”

With competing interests, supply chain considerations and added issues of trade relations in an increasingly uncertain period of protectionism, Willoughby says the Prime Minister faces a difficult circumstance to sort out.

“In this situation, it’s hard to identify if there’s a path that would make all parties reasonably satisfied,” Willoughby said.

Huber is heading to Ottawa next week to meet with federal Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald to express SARM’s concerns. SARM is calling for the federal government to remove trade barriers and open China as a market before things get worse.

In the meantime, grain bins in Saskatchewan remain full.

“Producers are hesitant to sell in a market that doesn’t meet their cost of production,” Huber said.

--With files from Spencer Van Dyk