Spring
2016
grainswest.com
39
Beyond pesticide limits
T
here’s more to consider when thinking about
detecting minute levels of residues than just
applied products, as Henry Vos, a farmer from
Fairview, can attest.
On a recent trade mission to the United
Kingdom, Vos met with members of the National
Association of British and Irish Flour Millers.
There, he had the chance to field several
questions from buyers, one of which pertained to
concern over mycotoxin levels in wheat.
Mycotoxins, produced by fungal diseases on
grain such as Fusarium head blight (FHB), are also
subject to threshold levels. And, like for MRLs,
detection equipment is incredibly precise.
Vos, a director for Alberta Wheat Commission,
said that members of the association expressed
concern over Canadian product approaching
the European threshold for mycotoxin. “What
we learned, though, was that they were using
a No. 3 CWRS wheat,” Vos said. When asked
if they had similar issues with a No. 1 or No. 2
product, the answer was a resounding no.
“They like the price of the No. 3 wheat,” he
said, “but one attribute is a little off.” Still, they
don’t want to pay the higher price for the better
grade. Canadian standards for No. 1 and No. 2
wheat maintain mycotoxin levels well below the
threshold.
What Vos learned from the experience is that
there’s often an agenda or more to the story on
some of these quality or technical issues than
meets the eye—whether they’re production- or
product-related doesn’t matter.
Meeting face to face with customers, Vos said,
is an invaluable way to field questions that may
seem purely regulatory or technical in nature, but
in fact are more about price or access. “There’s
a lot of interest in how we grow our crops,” Vos
said. “Meeting our customers is a great way
to answer questions they may not have had a
chance to ask otherwise.”
What’s more, misaligned or missing MRLs are only going to
become more of an issue as more free-trade agreements are
signed, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Canada-
EU Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement.
“As more tariffs disappear, non-tariff issues like MRLs will
matter more,” Kurbis said. “While misaligned MRLS, like a
10-ppm (parts per million) MRL in one country and a five-ppm
MRL in another, can occasionally be a challenge, the key
problem is missing MRLs. A missing MRL could default to zero
or near-zero tolerances.”
The advantage of working through trade agreements, he
said, is that we have the opportunity to establish rules to deal
with these technical issues as they arise, ideally including
recognition between trading partners of each other’s risk-
assessment work and MRLs. “That way, if a country had a
missing MRL, it could apply a trading partner’s MRL instead of
defaulting to zero. This could solve a majority of the problems
that arise,” Kurbis said.
In the short term, Kurbis said it’s vital that commodity
organizations communicate with growers well ahead of the
growing season. But the long-term goal has to be one of
getting out to our important trading partners and securing the
MRLs we need, Kurbis said.
“No one entity can solve this, so it’s important that
commodity groups are working in partnership on the
issue,” Kurbis said—which they are, both nationally and
internationally.
KEEPING IT CLEAN
As both Dahl and Kurbis noted, the bulk of the issues with
MRLs come down to two things: following label directions
and communication. Kurbis said that the pulse industry has
produced a grower advisory each year since 2011 to alert
farmers to any potential MRL-related issues ahead of a new
growing season.
Cereals Canada recently collaborated with the Canola
Council of Canada, expanding on its Keep it Clean program
to include grain-related reminders and considerations for
growers (find it at keepingitclean.ca). The Keep it Clean
initiative acknowledges not just in-crop considerations
for crop protection use, but also covers storage best
management practices, in an effort to minimize mycotoxin
growth that could also have trade implications
(see sidebar).
The responsibility of the individual farmers, added Dahl, is
to ask a few questions ahead of this growing season. “Before
using a product for the first time, talk to your crop input supplier
about any potential MRL issues,” he said. “Be sure to talk to your
buyer about any MRL-related concerns.” MRL issues are highly
dependent on where a product is headed, so one buyer may
be more particular than the other.
And, as always, read and follow label rules when using crop
protection products—entire export markets depend on it.
