{"id":66081,"date":"2025-08-13T08:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T08:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66081\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T08:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T08:23:09","slug":"trade-war-with-china-could-have-devastating-impact-on-canadian-canola-farmers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/66081\/","title":{"rendered":"Trade war with China could have devastating impact on Canadian canola farmers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHere we go again. If it\u2019s not one thing, it\u2019s another, especially with China. They\u2019ve always got something up their sleeve so they can drop our price.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how John Guelly, a canola producer near Westlock, Alta., reacted to Tuesday\u2019s news that China is slapping a 75.8 per cent tariff on imports of Canadian canola.<\/p>\n

Guelly, who is a former chair of Canola Alberta, an advocacy group for the province\u2019s 14,000 canola farmers, estimates the value of the Canadian canola production at $12 billion annually<\/a>, or about 15 per cent of the total income Canadian farmers receive from the sale of agricultural commodities each year.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJohn Guelly, who grows canola near Westlock, Alta., said trading with China is like a revolving door because they always seem to find a new reason to impose tariffs.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

China is the world\u2019s largest importer of canola<\/a> \u2014 purchasing nearly all of it from Canada, and using it primarily to make animal feed for its aquaculture sector.<\/p>\n

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In March,<\/a> China also imposed a 100 per cent levy on Canadian canola oil and meal, plus peas, and a 25 per cent duty on Canadian seafood and pork.<\/p>\n

China claims these crippling new tariffs are needed to prevent \u201cdumping\u201d of Canadian canola into the Chinese market, hurting domestic canola farmers.<\/p>\n

But the tariffs on raw canola are widely believed to be a China\u2019s response to Canada imposing a 100 per cent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles that was put in place in October 2024.<\/p>\n

Chinese EVs are significantly less expensive than North American-made EVs, in part because of lower labour and environmental standards and state subsidies.<\/p>\n

Then-prime minister Justin Trudeau said the tariffs, which are similar to American tariffs on Chinese EVs, were needed to protect Canada\u2019s auto industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe seem to be helping out Eastern Canada and Western Canada suffers again. Unfortunately, our southern neighbour seems to be giving them a little more extra ammunition,\u201d said Guelly.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tFor canola farmers, news of the tariffs come at a particularly bad time of year because many are preparing to start this year\u2019s harvest.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Ryan Hofford, who farms about 480 hectares (1,200 acres) near Swan River, Man., said that almost immediately after the new tariffs were announced, the price he expects to get for his crop this fall dropped by about $30 per tonne or about $50 per acre.<\/p>\n

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\u201cAnd (it\u2019s) important to remember that that $50 per acre comes out of the profits. You know, fertilizer\u2019s been paid, seed has been paid, chemicals, everything\u2019s paid. So all we\u2019re left with now is the profits.\u00a0 If we didn\u2019t have any production pre-priced in my case, this hit would be about a $30,000,\u201d said Hofford.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tRyan Hofford, who grows canola near Swan River, Man,, said the price he can get for his canola dropped by about $50. per acre overnight \u2014 a loss of about $30,000 after expenses.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tCourtesy: Ryan Hofford\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe reacted to news of the tariffs, which come just as this year\u2019s harvest is about to begin, by saying they \u201cwill have a devastating impact\u201d on the country\u2019s agriculture industry.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"For<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n

For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis $43 to $45 billion Canadian canola industry that we have (is) employing just over 200,000 people,\u201d said Moe.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo put this into context, that is significantly larger than the steel industry, the aluminum industry and the car manufacturing industry combined.\u00a0 It\u2019s about the same size as the Canadian forestry industry, which we saw significant supports for just this past week.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEach of those industries, the steel the aluminum and the EV industry, have been hit hard by U.S. tariffs, as has our forest industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tSaskatchewan Premier Scott Moe says the Canadian canola industry is worth $43 to 45 billion Canadian each year and employs over 200,000 people.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Moe said canola producers deserve the same amount of attention and support from the federal government as the other industries that have been hit hard by tariffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are asking that this be dealt with immediately and I\u2019ve reached out to the prime minister this morning and I suspect I will be speaking with him at some point later today,\u201d said Moe<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t3:20
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCanada targets China with higher tariffs as part of steel industry measures\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The tariffs on canola are not the only bad news for Canadian farmers. The Chinese government also announced Tuesday that is has started an anti dumping investigation into imports of Canadian pea starch<\/a>, which is used as a food ingredient and in other applications such as paper making, phamaceuticals and textiles.<\/p>\n

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While Moe said the new tariffs on canola are expected to \u201cstop a significant amount of trade that is flowing into China today, \u201cfinding a replacement for the millions of tonnes of canola (that China purchases from Canada) will be very difficult unless import demand drops sharply,\u201d said Donatas Jankauskas, an analyst with commodity data firm CM Navigator.<\/p>\n

Australia, the world\u2019s second-largest exporter of canola, has been shut out of the Chinese market since 2020 due mainly to Chinese concerns over the spread of a fungal plant disease.<\/p>\n

For Canada\u2019s canola farmers, the ultimate solution to the trade dispute would be to find other markets.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing our own on this end, trying to get more domestic crush capacity and more use for our oil domestically so that we don\u2019t have to rely on some of these international countries that we sell to,\u201d said Guelly.<\/p>\n

But unfortunately, in the short term, while they wait for Ottawa and Bejing to try to resolve their differences, Guelly says farmers are going to need to \u201cride it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere we are. We\u2019re not fighting the weather, we\u2019re fighting the markets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013with files from Reuters and The Canadian Press.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHere we go again. If it\u2019s not one thing, it\u2019s another, especially with China. They\u2019ve always got something…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,49,48,42137,42138,42136,46,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-66081","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-canada-canola-farmers","12":"tag-canada-china","13":"tag-china-canada-canola","14":"tag-economy","15":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}