Premier Brad Wall says the Saskatchewan government will help the federal government make the “science-based case” that India should extend an exemption that allows Canadian pulse crops to be treated for pests on arrival in India rather than before export.
The Indian government this week decided not to renew the 13-year-old exemption, which expires at the end of March and could affect more than $1 billion worth of pulses, many of them lentils grown in export-dependent Saskatchewan.
“We need permanent solutions to a lot of these science-related trade issues, but those are sometimes elusive,” Wall told reporters in Saskatoon this week. “So for as long as it takes to find out the long-term solution, we need to be proactive at moments like this.”
About $15 billion of the $32.8 billion worth of goods and services Saskatchewan exported in 2015 were agricultural and agri-food products, including about $2.6 billion worth of lentils — a crop that has exploded in the province over the last several decades.
The province’s farmers seeded about 85,000 acres of lentils in 1981. Today, about 3.8 million acres — slightly less than 10 per cent of the province’s arable land — is dedicated to the crop. Lentils are a staple food in countries like India and Turkey.
Source : Leaderpost