Vietnam to Call Off Thistle Seed Ban in Grain Imports

By Dave Bedard

Vietnam is expected to resume nearer-to-normal grain trade with exporting nations such as Canada, after it loosens a significant restriction on weed seed content.

Cereals Canada, a national cereals industry group, on Friday reported that Vietnam’s agriculture ministry has released a revised quarantine pest list due to take effect Sept. 29.

The new list, Cereals Canada said, will no longer include Canada thistle — otherwise known as creeping thistle or field thistle — which has been the subject of more-restrictive measures in bulk grain exports to Vietnam for over four years.

Vietnam in 2018 proposed new measures to block grain shipments that arrived with Canada thistle seed, to take effect as of Jan. 1, 2019.

Vietnamese officials warned at the time of “incalculable consequences” if thistle — already an established weed in Canada, the U.S. and Europe — were to get established in that country.

According to the Canadian Special Crops Association, officials in Canada were notified in March 2019 that some wheat and soybean shipments were found to be non-compliant with the new rule.

The result, Cereals Canada said Friday, was that in 2021 alone, Canada’s wheat exports to Vietnam came in at just over 20,000 tonnes, compared to more than 200,000 tonnes per year before the thistle seed restriction was tightened.

“With creeping thistle on the quarantine pest list, Canadian grain cargoes faced the risk of commercial penalty,” Cereals Canada CEO Dean Dias said in the organization’s release Friday.

“This change means that exports of Canadian cereals to Vietnam will be able to resume in bulk shipment for the first time since 2018.”

Dias said Cereals Canada had worked closely with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the federal Trade Commissioner Service and the federal ag department to help remove what he described as a “non-tariff trade barrier.”