Senators Ask China To Drop Grain Policy

Ten U.S. senators complained to the ambassador of China this week about “unscientific and arbitrary” barriers that keep Pacific Northwest wheat out of China.

The People’s Republic of China has maintained a non-tariff barrier, since 1972, that effectively bars exports of bulk grain to China from the Northwest, says a letter prepared principally by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

It was signed by Democratic Sens. Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Patty Murray of Washington, and by Republican Sens. Conrad Burns of Montana, Bob Packwood and Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Larry Craig and Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, and James Inhofe of Oklahoma.

The letter says the ban violates a 1992 China-U.S. agreement that stipulates arbitrary sanitation standards on imported farm products cannot be used as hidden trade barriers.

“This ban is not based on science,” said Packwood, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

China’s standards prohibit wheat affected by a disease known as tilletia controversa kuhn, or “TCK smut.”