Selenium Non-Tariff Trade Barrier

VANCOUVER - Jun 9/06 - SNS -- Selenium remains an issue facing Canada's pulse trade in efforts to sell product to China and it was cited as a non-trade barrier in talks between industry officials and Canada's Agriculture Minister.

China has a maximum tolerance for selenium in field peas of 0.3 milligrams or 300 micrograms per kilogram. The tolerance was established in 1991 but not enforced until march of this year.

To bring this into perspective, the recommended daily selenium intake for humans is 500 micrograms per day and the maximum recommended amount of selenium in the diet is under 1500 micrograms per day. When selenium intake consistently exceeds 5000 micrograms per kilogram of food eaten, people get sick. People also get sick if the diet contains less 30 micrograms of selenium per day.

Peas imported by China are used to make noodles. The requires separating the starch from the rest of the pea. Peas contain about 46% starch, suggesting any selenium contained in the peas are reduced by around half before they are used to make noodles. A half kilograms of starch will also make several servings of noodles.

The implication is peas might need to contain more than 2000 micrograms of selenium before there is enough to produce a serving of noodles which meets the recommended daily requirement for selenium and they may need to contain more than 66 times the maximum tolerance to result in noodles with untolerably high levels of selenium.

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