Canola Industry Responds to Imposition of Chinese Tariffs on Canadian Canola Meal and Oil

Mar 11, 2025

China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has announced the outcome of its anti-discrimination investigation initiated against Canada in September 2024 as a result of the federal government’s tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, steel and aluminum. In response to Canada, China’s State Council Tariff Commission will impose a 100 per cent tariff rate on Canadian canola oil and canola meal along with several other Canadian agricultural commodities as of March 20, 2025.

Tariffs from the State Council Tariff Commission resulting from the anti-discrimination investigation are separate and distinct from China’s anti-dumping investigation into imports of Canadian canola seed which is ongoing.

“New tariffs from China on Canadian canola oil and meal will have a devastating impact on canola farmers and the broader value chain at a time of increased trade and geopolitical uncertainty,” says Chris Davison, Canola Council of Canada (CCC) President & CEO. “We urge the federal government to immediately engage with China, with a view to resolving this issue.”

China is a highly valued market for Canadian canola and canola products. In 2024, total exports to China were valued at almost $5 billion and included 2 million metric tonnes of canola meal, valued at $921 million and 644 metric tonnes of canola oil, valued at $1.5 million. The tariff rates announced by the State Council Tariff Commission will be prohibitive to the export of Canadian canola oil and meal to China.

“With this announcement Canadian canola farmers are facing an unprecedented situation of trade uncertainty from our two largest export markets only weeks before planting begins,” says Rick White, Canadian Canola Growers Association (CCGA) President & CEO. “The impact of the federal government’s trade policy decisions is now playing out at the farmgate, making it imperative that government respond with a plan for financial compensation commensurate with the losses incurred.”

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Video: Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

A new peer reviewed study looks at the generally unrecognized risk of heat waves surpassing the threshold for enzyme damage in wheat.

Most studies that look at crop failure in the main food growing regions (breadbaskets of the planet) look at temperatures and droughts in the historical records to assess present day risk. Since the climate system has changed, these historical based risk analysis studies underestimate the present-day risks.

What this new research study does is generate an ensemble of plausible scenarios for the present climate in terms of temperatures and precipitation, and looks at how many of these plausible scenarios exceed the enzyme-breaking temperature of 32.8 C for wheat, and exceed the high stress yield reducing temperature of 27.8 C for wheat. Also, the study considers the possibility of a compounded failure with heat waves in both regions simultaneously, this greatly reducing global wheat supply and causing severe shortages.

Results show that the likelihood (risk) of wheat crop failure with a one-in-hundred likelihood in 1981 has in today’s climate become increased by 16x in the USA winter wheat crop (to one-in-six) and by 6x in northeast China (to one-in-sixteen).

The risks determined in this new paper are much greater than that obtained in previous work that determines risk by analyzing historical climate patterns.

Clearly, since the climate system is rapidly changing, we cannot assume stationarity and calculate risk probabilities like we did traditionally before.

We are essentially on a new planet, with a new climate regime, and have to understand that everything is different now.