Canada and China have finally reached an agreement that will see canola exports continue as they are.

The deal is said to be good until the year 2020.

"They way we understand it is it's a science-based agreement that will run until 2020 and there will be no change in the dockage. When I say science-based, we have done studied and research here in Canada, that shows the risk of transmitting blackleg through dockage is extremely low, so that's what we mean by science-based," said the President of the Canadian Canola Growers Association Brett Halstead.  

Under the deal Canadian canola can now continue to move into China with the current level of dockage, China had wanted to drop it to 1% due to disease concerns with blackleg.

"What China is purposing to do is, have a government mandated 1% limit on dockage, which is lower than anywhere else in the world, in fact nowhere in the world is lower than 2.5% in the world, so right now that would be very difficult for the Canadian industry to meet on the volume of canola we send to China," he said. 

China represents about 40% of our canola seed exports or about 4 million tonnes.