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Farm Groups call on federal government to return tariff payments

OTTAWA, ON, – Farm groups from Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada are calling on the federal government to refund farmers who have borne the extra fees and costs resulting from tariffs on fertilizer in 2022.  

Representatives from the Atlantic Grains Council, Québec Grain Farmers, Grain Farmers of Ontario, the Ontario Bean Growers Association, Ontario Canola Growers, and the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario – representing more than 50,000 farmers – have come together to ask the government to ensure the refund of tariff fees goes directly to farmers.

According to Statistics Canada, the federal government collected $34 million in tariff income on fertilizer imported into Canada in 2022. Since last spring, farmers have been paying tariff surcharges on fertilizer purchased to grow their crops. Much of these surcharges were placed on fertilizer purchased in advance of the tariffs being introduced.

Farm groups have spent months meeting with Members of Parliament to outline the impact the tariffs are having on the Canadian food system and the importance of refunding this money back to farmers.   

“We need the government to return the money collected directly back to farmers who paid the tariffs on fertilizer,” said Brendan Byrne, Chair of the Grain Farmers of Ontario. “Over the past two months, we have met with over a dozen Members of Parliament who have been very supportive of finding a resolution to this matter. We want to ensure decision-makers follow through to see this money is returned to farmers.”

“Canadian farmers bore the costs of these tariffs and have been disadvantaged with higher production costs when they sell their crops on the same markets as farmers from other countries who did not pay tariffs on fertilizers,” said Christian Overbeek, Chair of Québec Grain Farmers, adding “our farmers need to know the government is acting on a resolution.”

“With mounting food insecurity concerns at home and abroad, the world is depending on Canadian farmers to produce our best crop this year. You cannot grow crops without fertilizer, and you cannot produce food without crops,” said Roy Culberson, Chair of the Atlantic Grains Council.

“Forcing farmers to pay a tariff on a global product such as fertilizer just penalizes the farmer and adds additional costs at a time when input costs are already at an all-time high,” said Ryan Koeslag of the Ontario Bean Growers Association. “We look forward to seeing a speedy resolution from government.”

“Farmers continue to take the brunt of yearly rising input costs,  and now with a new tariff added on top of that for a global product,  such as fertilizer, is simply ridiculous. The CFFO is asking the government to please refund back our Farmers,” said Thomas Tavani, General Manager of the Christian Farmers Federation of Ontario.

Source : GFO

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

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.