Washington - High-level negotiators are making “very good progress” on nettlesome farm-trade disputes that prompted a harvest-time crack down on Canadian trucks at border crossings in five U.S. states, officials from both nations said on Tuesday.
“There's very good progress, I'm told,” Canadian Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief told reporters.
Deputy U.S. Trade Representative Peter Scher said in a hallway interview that he hoped a settlement could be reached by week's end.
“Our hope is we can make real progress this week,” Scher said. Some lawmakers were demanding a decision by December 7 and there were threats of new farmer demonstrations against Canadian grain shipments.
Neither Scher nor Vanclief, who made separate appearances at a forum sponsored by Farm Journal magazine, would discuss terms of a possible settlement. A five-point plan reportedly was on the table.
During a luncheon speech and again during a news conference, Vanclief said Canada would not accept any limits on its shipments to the U.S. market. A one- year agreement, in 1995, that capped wheat exports at about one million tonnes “is history,” he said.
“There is no sense in referring back to it,” he said, although the idea of caps was raised repeatedly and had come up in a meeting on Monday with Senator Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, in Ottawa.
The two trading partners began negotiations in early October to resolve U.S. complaints that Canadian wheat and cattle exports were harming U.S. prices while Canada unfairly restricted U.S. access to its markets.
Discussions began after a handful of state governors, to focus attention on farmer complaints, directed inspectors to crack down on Canadian trucks. Tactics included a demand for truckers to carry documents showing grain was disease-free or that livestock had not been treated with particular drugs.
In recent days, farm groups have said a five-point settlement was being discussed. It reportedly included:
--a pilot program to allow entry to Canada for wheat from farms certified as disease-free in three states;
--access for U.S. grain to Canadian railroads;
--recognition by Canada that some growing regions of the United States were free of Karnal bunt and TCK smut, two damaging wheat diseases;
--a bilateral effort to gather information about farm chemicals and to standardize regulations on them in both nations;
--requiring information on sales dates and prices as part of U.S. “end-use” certificates that follow imports of Canadian wheat from entry to final user.
Canada and the United States have one of the largest ag-trade relationships on earth, with nearly $15 billion in goods crossing the border in the fiscal year ending September 30. Canada enjoyed an advantage in the trade, selling $7.7 billion in ag goods to the U.S. market and buying $7 billion in U.S. products.
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