South Korea suspends Canadian wheat imports

Jun 19, 2018

The decision stems from the discovery of GM wheat in Alberta

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

A second trading partner has decided to temporarily stop Canadian wheat and flour imports.

South Korea, who brought in more than 225,000 tons of wheat from Canada last year, announced it is suspending those imports in light of the recent discovery of GM wheat in Alberta.

“We will only allow (the) sale of wheat products that are confirmed not to contain unapproved genetically modified wheat,” South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said in a statement today.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) revealed on Friday that it encountered a variety of GM wheat in southern Alberta last summer. The variety survived a herbicide application and testing revealed it contained Monsanto’s Roundup Ready trait.

Canadian wheat makes up a small portion of South Korea’s total wheat imports.

The Asian country imports about 9.2 per cent of its wheat from Canada. Importers are not worried the interruption will have any notable impact.

“The impact of suspending the sale of Canadian wheat and flour would be limited because the share of Canadian wheat imports is small,” a source from CJ Cheiljedang Corp, a South Korean wheat importer, told Reuters yesterday.

Canadian representatives are optimistic the ag industry can provide trading partners with the information they need to resume importing grain.

“I am confident that we have the answers that Korea is looking for, just as I’m very confident that we have the answers that Japan is looking for,” Cam Dahl, president of Cereals Canada, told the Canadian Press yesterday.

The CFIA has also developed a test kit for trading partners to detect the specific type of wheat.

Japan, who imports about 1.5 million tons of Canadian wheat annually, announced Friday it would immediately suspend wheat imports due to the GM findings.

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