In what’s expected to be Prairie wheat growers’ biggest sale to China in five years, state-run food processing firm COFCO has signed an agreement to buy half a million tonnes of Canadian spring wheat.
The deal, which the Canadian Wheat Board said is worth about C$130 million at current market values, is to be carried out by the end of next year, according to the board’s release Monday.
The sale is expected to double wheat sales to China over recent years, federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said in a separate release during his trade mission to Shanghai.
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“This agreement is a significant achievement for western Canadian farmers in a very competitive market,” CWB CEO Ian White said in the board’s release.
Agreements such as these “are not possible without the strong support of government,” White added, thanking Ritz and other government officials for their “direct involvement” in seeing the memorandum of agreement signed.
The deal was signed shortly before a dinner Saturday at Expo 2010 in Shanghai, marking the CWB’s 75th anniversary and the 50-year relationship between Prairie farmers and Chinese customers, the board said.
Ritz, at an event in Beijing in Beijing, also presented a plaque to the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture to mark 50 years of agricultural co-operation that started with Canada’s first wheat shipments to China.
Those shipments, the government noted in its release, “saved thousands of people facing famine due to drought and marked the beginning of the strong agricultural relationship that exists today between the two countries.”
The wheat memorandum of agreement follows what the CWB called its largest long-term agreement ever for malting barley, signed in April between China and the CWB, guaranteeing minimum sales of 500,000 tonnes of malting barley over three years to COFCO.
The wheat board has operated a branch office in Beijing since 1994, one of just two CWB offices outside Canada.
Ritz’s trade mission included a Canada Day event on Friday at Expo 2010, where he, Canada Beef Export Federation chairman Gib Drury and Canadian Cattlemen’s Association president Travis Toews served up a specially-permitted barbecue of Canadian beef.
That event, also attended by Canada’s Governor General Michaelle Jean, marked China’s agreement to formally lift its ban on boneless beef from Canadian cattle under 30 months of age (UTMs) and tallow for industrial use, effective Saturday.
Canola press
The barbecue also served up “Canada’s world-class pork in a delicious canola marinade,” the government said.
Ritz noted he “continued to press” his Chinese counterparts to remove access restrictions on Canada’s canola crop and emphasized the need for Canada and China to find a long-term solution to address current restrictions.
Progress has been made on this issue, Ritz said, as Canada recently got an extension of transitional measures to allow canola producers to export their 2010 canola crops to China.
China in November 2009 slapped a requirement on all imports of Canadian canola, calling for phytosanitary certificates that would certify shipments as free of blackleg. Canada’s 2008 canola exports to China were worth $1.3 billion.
“I will continue to raise, at every opportunity, the canola restrictions with my Chinese counterparts as we work together to reach a lasting agreement to permanently lift restrictions on Canadian canola exports to China,” Ritz said Monday.
