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“We continue to be a supplier of high-quality canola to China and will work with China to resolve this issue as quickly as possible,” she said. “We are closely monitoring the situation and any potential impact on Canada’s agricultural trading relationship with China.”

Though other Canadian companies also received the initial notifications in December, Ruest believes his is the only firm to have its authorization revoked. Canadian grain exporters — including Viterra, Cargill and Parrish and Heimbecker — declined to comment. The Canola Council of Canada said there was no clear evidence that the current challenges facing canola exporters are linked to “diplomatic frictions.”

Richardson sends several shipments to China annually, each carrying roughly 50,000 tonnes of canola, Ruest said. China is the world’s largest importer of canola.

“It’s a significant part of our business and obviously we’ll have to find other outlets for our product,” Ruest said. “This is an issue much larger than Richardson so we have to hope and expect that our government is going to take all the steps required to address the situation forcefully. These are early days and we’ll see how things progress but we are obviously very disappointed with the situation.”

Canola futures declined to their lowest level in more than two years, following several months of softening export volumes and prices.

“We haven’t seen a lot of energy in the Canadian market in a while and if Richardson is being blocked that could partly be why,” said Neil Townsend, a senior analyst at FarmLink Marketing Solutions. “Demand has been very slow and China as the biggest importer is obviously part of that.”