Keep It Clean is a Joint Effort

by | May 15, 2023 | Features, Programs

Keep It Clean shares five simple tips to protect Canadian market access.

Around the world, Canada is recognized as a trusted supplier of high-quality canola, cereals and pulses. Maintaining this reputation and protecting market access is vital to the success of our agriculture sector.

Jake Leguee, who grows canola, durum, lentils, peas and wheat near Fillmore, Sask. says market access is something he takes seriously on his farm.

“What you do on your farm matters. That’s what I try to tell neighbours and friends. You might think your individual fields are no big deal, but if your crop happens to be one of the samples taken at the export destination, and they detect residues greater than the maximum residue limit, now we all have a problem,” he says.

The maximum residue limit (MRL) is the maximum amount of pesticide residue that’s allowed to remain on harvested grain and are primarily used for trade purposes — not to measure food safety. Since countries can set their own MRLs, Canadian crops must meet the MRLs set by the destination country to avoid trade disruptions. If no MRLs are listed for a product, the assumed limit is zero.

“Market access issues and residue limits can impact Canada’s ability to sell grain,” explains Greg Bartley, director of crop protection and crop quality at Pulse Canada. “The Keep It Clean initiative focuses on equipping farmers with tools they can use to make quick, informed decisions in the field to avoid unacceptable residue levels.”

Keep it Clean is a joint initiative of the Canola Council of Canada, Cereals Canada, Pulse Canada and the Prairie Oat Growers Association, providing growers and crop advisers with resources for growing market-ready crops.

This information is summarized in five simple tips that farmers can use to help keep their crops ready for market:

  1. Use acceptable pesticides only — Pesticide use is an important part of protecting your investment but using unacceptable pesticides can put your investment at risk. Only apply pesticides registered in Canada for use on your crop that are acceptable to both domestic and export markets. Before making application decisions for the growing season ahead, talk to your grain buyer and refer to Keep it Clean’s annual product advisory for a list of product/crop combinations that may create market risk.
  2. Always read and follow the label — Always follow the label for application rate, timing, and pre-harvest interval (PHI). Improper or off-label use of pesticides is illegal and may result in unacceptable residues that can put market access at risk for all.
  3. Manage disease pressures — Diseases like blackleg in canola and fusarium head blight (FHB) in cereals may create market risk. An integrated disease management plan is important to maintain yield and profitability and can help protect Canada’s reputation as a supplier of high-quality crops.
  4. Store your crop properly — Proper storage helps maintain crop quality and keeps the bulk free of harmful cross-contaminants. For example, Ochratoxin A (OTA) can be a market access risk as different countries have different maximum allowable limits of OTA in grain. Another example is malathion, which can be used to treat cereals and other non-oilseed grains in bins that have been contaminated with insects but must be kept out of canola bins as canola found with malathion residues is unacceptable for export customers.
  5. Deliver what you declare — When you sign the mandatory Declaration of Eligibility affidavit at the elevator, you are making a legal assertion that your crop is the variety and/or class you have designated and that it wasn’t treated with the crop input products specified in the declaration. For canola, it’s important not to seed de-registered varieties or deliver them to an elevator or grain handler.

Keep it Clean offers a variety of tools and resources to help farmers follow these five simple tips to grow market-ready canola, cereal and pulse crops. These include the:

  • Product Advisory that outlines market considerations and categorizations of specific crop protection products.
  • Pre-harvest Glyphosate Staging Guide to determine when grain moisture is less than 30 per cent in crops and provides helpful tips around glyphosate application to help growers avoid unacceptable residues in the grain.
  • Spray to Swath Interval Calculator which helps canola and pulse growers calculate the PHI. PHI is the minimum number of days that must pass between spraying a crop protection product and cutting your crop either by swathing or straight cutting. The calculator can also be used to find a crop protection product that suits your timeline for cutting the crop.

For these tools and more resources to grow market-ready crops, visit the Keep it Clean website.

Header photo — A crop is sprayed in a field. Photo: Keep it Clean

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