LANSING – Though the exact costs are still unclear, Michigan growers and processors, and some non-agricultural industries, sending their products to Canada will face some additional costs in the coming year, Agriculture and Rural Development Director Jamie Clover Adams told the Commission of Agriculture and Rural Development at its meeting Wednesday.
Canada is planning retaliatory tariffs because of federal country of origin labeling rules, which violate international trade agreements, Clover Adams said.
“Michigan will bear the brunt of that,” she said.
The coming tariffs are the result of two successful challenges to federal rules, she said.
The key problem, she said, is meat products, but the tariffs are expected to apply to a variety of farm products as well as such things as furniture.
A release from Canadian officials listed 33 Michigan products that would be hit by the new tariffs, among them both live and processed beef, pork and chickens, as well as apples, corn, syrups (including maple), pasta, wooden furniture and mattresses.
Congress, Clover Adams said, had tried to address the issue in the most recent federal farm bill, but Canadian and Mexican officials argued successfully to the World Trade Organization that the changes actually made the requirements worse.
Clover Adams said she had urged Canadian officials to temper the tariffs “given that they are our largest trading partner and they are our neighbor.” She particularly raised the collaborative efforts on the coming international bridge as an example of the cooperation the two sides can see, she said.
But she expects some level of tariff until the federal government revises the rules.
It is not clear yet, she said, how or when Congress might address the issue.
GAAMPS: The latest changes to the Generally Accepted Agricultural and Management Practices are expected to be posted to the department’s website later this week, but officials said none of the changes for the coming year are as substantial as last year.
“I don’t see any of them as significant in terms of the practices themselves,” Wayne Whitman, director of the program, said.
The commission nonetheless approved having a public comment session on the GAAMPs next month.
And the GAAMPs could draw some comment. Opponents of the siting standards adopted this year objected during public comment Wednesday that the planned changes did not including revisions to those standards.
Advocates said the new standards were making it difficult for small farms in more residential areas to operate.
A public input session is scheduled for 9 a.m. December 12 in the Lake Superior Room, First Floor, Michigan Library and Historical Center, 702 West Kalamazoo Street, Lansing.
