Wheat dumping caused by misprint

Agricultural officials on P.E.I. are trying to determine how many tonnes of wheat were dumped in the mistaken beliefit wasnot fit for human consumption.

P.E.I. farmers have been dumping thousands of tonnes of wheat this month due to high levels of a toxin caused by fusarium blight. For more than 20 years, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has set the acceptable level of this toxin at two parts per million.

This year, however, a letter from Dover Mills to P.E.I. Grain Elevators said the acceptable level was one part per million.

"It is simply a miscommunication," said Wes Sheridan, the acting agriculture minister.

Sheridan said agriculture officials will begin next weekto tryto determine how much good wheat has been dumped. He said grain elevators are holding a lot of wheat with toxins between one and two parts per million for feed grain, and that can now go to the flour mill. He said more is being held by farmers.

It has been a bad year for the fungus, said Sheridan, and much of the wheat that was dumped was in fact over the two-parts-per-million contamination.

Week of confusion

Farmers who were dumping their wheat were under the mistaken impression that standards had changed at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The CFIA told CBC News it had not changed its standards in decades, and it could not explain why Dover Mills was rejecting the wheat. The first word from Dover Mills came on Wednesday, when it said its standards had not changed either.

Sheridan met with Stan Thomas, vice-president of operations of Dover Mills, on Thursday, and determined that a misprint in a letter had caused the problem.

"It was clearly portrayed in the different written transactions between Dover and P.E.I. Grain Elevators," said Sheridan.

"They received this in writing with a one per cent DON number on it. And it was just simply a miscommunication, in written word, and their apology has been put forward both to us as a government, who we enjoy a very strong relationship with, and the P.E.I. Grain Elevators."

Thomas said he was hopeful the incident would not damage the relationship between P.E.I. Grain Elevators and Dover Mills.

Mary Van DenBroek-Grant, who owns Cardigan Feed Services, saidalthough she was relieved tohear the standards had not changed,thesituation was highly stressful for farmers.

"There will be a real blame game happening here as there rightly should be," she said. "Somebody has to be held accountable for these kinds of losses. And it shouldn't be the grower in the end again."

Van DenBroek-Grant said she believes up to $2 million had been lost in dumped milling wheat.

Big losses possible

While there have been thousands of tonnes of wheat dumped, it is not yet known how much of it was, in fact, good.

Earlier this week, Cardigan MP Lawrence MacAulay said he knew of one farmer that had $300,000 worth of wheat that he could not sell.

Farmers who have dumped their wheat will be partially covered by crop insurance, providing them with about half of what the crop would be worth in the marketplace.

Sheridan did not discuss the possibility of compensation for farmers.