A new report argues China was prepping to limit canola imports long before the trade tensions we're seeing between China and Canada.

The Canadian Agri-Food Policy (CAPI) Institute helped a University of Ottawa Masters student at the China Policy Centre with the thought provoking paper.

CAPI Research Associate, Margaret Zafiriou, says the document shows China has been changing their agricultural policy to diversify food supplies and enhance food security since the 2008 global food price crisis.

"They lowered the price of domestic rapeseed, which is what they produce and they found that their processors, of course, prefer Canadian canola because of the quality of the oil and they were still importing. What happened with the domestic supplies, they started building an inventory and that just made things worse."

The report also points to China's restrictions against Canadian canola imports in 2009 and 2016 raising concerns about the plant disease, blackleg.

It says the Canadian Government's intervention to solve the trade dispute in 2016 gave people a false sense of security, as the temporary resolution was due to expire next year.

"The paper is trying to argue what Canada could to do try and better understand the policy decision making," Zafiriou said. "But it doesn't mention very much about the fact that perhaps some of the restrictions of imports may be not WTO (World Trade Organization) compliant."

She also points out, the report doesn't address African Swine Fever, saying China doesn't have as much demand for canola meal to feed the pigs as the disease has been destroying many of their hog population.

This report draws the conclusion current canola trade issues with China could have been avoided if the Canadian industry would've paid more attention to long-term agricultural policy developments in China.

The read the full report, you can visit their website.

 

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