A company in the United States has alleged there are green peas and green lentils being shipped from the U.S. to Canada, then exported to China and India as being Canadian.
According to a report at AGCanada.com, Jeff Van Pevenage, president of Columbia Grain, Portland, OR, first made the allegations to the Western Producer in September. He said this practice has allegedly been going on for about six to eight months.
Van Pevenage says U.S. peas face a 25% tariff when exported to China, whereas there isn’t a tariff for Canadian peas. Also, U.S. lentils are slapped with a 55% tariff when going to India, compared to the 33% levy for Canadian lentils.
Supporting Van Pevenage’s claim are data from Statistics Canada, which show almost 47,500 tonnes of peas and nearly 39,600 tonnes of lentils from the U.S. came into Canada in July alone.
That compares to about 19,700 tonnes of peas and close to 16,800 tonnes of lentils imported from the U.S. into Canada for all of 2018.
The Canadian Grain Commission said it has not seen anything crop up in its data to support Van Pevenage’s allegation.
Read the full report at AGCanada.com.
