More Canadian wheat import approvals issued, angering farmers

A POTENTIAL wave of grain imports coming into Australia has riled farmers.

It comes as another two permits to import Canadian wheat into Australia were granted by the Federal Government late last week.

It brings the total number of import permits to three with confirmation eight more applications to import grain from the US and Canada are under assessment.

A department spokesman said two permits were issued last week to an Australian importer for “single imports of bulk wheat from Canada, subject to strict conditions to manage any biosecurity risk”.

Recent permits — the first to be issued since 2007 — have drawn the ire of grain growers and key grain groups with Victorian Farmers Federation grains group president Ashley Fraser rejecting claims there was not enough high protein wheat in Australia to satisfy importer demands.

“There is no reason to risk introducing pests or disease through imports if domestic production can meet demand, and there is no way of knowing domestic supply without a national stocks reporting system,” Mr Fraser said.

Georgie Warner, a farmer and grain merchant from near Birchip, said her main concern was the potential biosecurity risk imported grain posed.

“Obviously there are economic concerns … the biosecurity has far greater ramifications if we cock it up,” Ms Warner said, adding there had been a lack of transparency regarding the decision to grant the grain import permits. “They’re not telling the stakeholders anything. I don’t believe we can justify the threat to our biosecurity,” she said.

GrainGrowers chair Brett Hosking said growers wanted to know the department had biosecurity risks under control.

“There’s no reason to think they don’t. But from a grower’s perspective, we’d have liked the department to have been more open,” Mr Hosking said.

“We’ve got growers saying they’ve got the grain, but we don’t have the transparency around that to see the quality of it.”

weeklytimesnow.com.au