Taiwan's flour millers on Monday called on the government to clearly set acceptable amounts of pesticide residue to be allowed on imported US wheat, saying a de facto total ban in place now could cause wheat shortages soon.
Government currently lacks any standard for the residue on wheat, which effectively means zero tolerance. Millers and traders were closely monitoring the issue after a cargo of US wheat that arrived in Touching in Taiwan's west on Saturday was being tested for the residue of a pesticide called marathon.
Results of whether the cargo will pass the inspection were expected on Tuesday, traders said. More than 10 days ago, the government had rejected 9,000 tonnes of US wheat due to the discovery of marathon residue in the shipment.
Taiwan, the seventh-largest importer of US wheat, virtually relies on imports to meet its milling needs, and the United States is the island's dominant wheat provider. Taiwan imports an average of about 1 million tonnes of wheat every year.
"It might affect our supply in future because if there are problems with one cargo, then the following five cargoes will face the same issue," said an official at the Taiwan flourmills association, the island's main wheat buying organisation.
He said the cargoes, which carry around 45,000 tonnes of wheat each, included the one that is being tested in Touching. "We want the government to set a standard so that we can work according to that criteria," he said. Officials from the Department of Health and traders said Taiwan now allowed a certain amount of the marathon residue to be found in six agricultural products, but wheat was not among those products.
"Since wheat is not among the six, that means the tolerance level for wheat is zero ppm (parts per million)," a trader said. "Even our fruits and vegetables are allowed to have a few ppm, so it's unreasonable to have a requirement for zero ppm for wheat," the trader said.
The association said it hoped the government set criteria that can tolerate around 5-8 ppm of the residue found in wheat, which conforms to international standards.
Traders said the government rejected the 9,000-tonne cargo after it had recently acquired a new testing machine that was more sensitive, but government officials disagreed. "We think it's because the quality of the commodity varies and that has got nothing to do to the machine," the official from the health department said.
The association said it had contacted the government with its queries on residue standards, while the health department said it was waiting for the association to reply with more information about the residue found in the cargoes.
Last week, a tender by the association to buy nearly 90,000 tonnes of US wheat for delivery at the end of August failed because of the residue issue, traders said.
"We don't have a shortage of wheat right now, but if this problem is unresolved, then it will affect supply in future," the official from the association said. "Even if we try and buy wheat from other countries, we will still encounter the same problem."