Farmscape for April 19, 2006  (Episode 2115)

Canadian livestock producers are expressing relief following a ruling that will end countervail and antidumping duties on imported US grain corn.

Yesterday the Canadian International Trade Tribunal determined unprocessed grain corn imported from the United States has not injured and is not threatening to injure the domestic corn industry.

As a result provisional countervail and antidumping duties imposed in December will end and those already collected will be refunded.

The Animal Industry Corn Users, a coalition of the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada, Canadian Cattlemen’s Association and Canadian Pork Council, indicates it is very pleased with the ruling.

Canadian Pork Council 1st Vice-President Edouard Asnong stresses, to compete globally, Canadian livestock producers must be able to sell their  products at competitive prices.

Clip-Edouard Asnong-Canadian Pork Council 

To be able to produce those products we need to have access to a competitive input price for different products that we sometimes need because we're not self sufficient in producing them.

That's the only reason that we buy from other countries, is because it's not available here.

If the input is artificially raised because of a dumping rate or a countervail duty then we are uncompetitive.

That is very dangerous, not just for producers, it's dangerous for the whole value chain that we are working with; packers, processors and all those people who are depending on the product we produce.

Asnong notes the global problems facing Canadian farmers require global solutions and he suggests the government needs to show leadership to ensure that multilateral and bilateral negotiations result in more fair trading environments.

In the absence of that, he suggests, the Canadian government needs to step in and provide effective and predictable programs for farmers.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council