On Friday afternoon, it was announced India was raising tariffs on Canadian pulse crops by another 20 per-cent. The tariff on imported chickpeas jumps to 60 percent.

A senior market analyst at FarmLink Marketing Solutions, Neil Townsend, says the high tariffs are going to make it difficult for Canada to get a quality export program, “The remainder of the 2017/18 marketing year and the beginning period of the 18/19 year and well into the 18/19 year I think we’re going to see maintaining these tariffs on lentils, chickpeas and it’s just going mean (like) it’s going to be harder for Canada to make an export program back to the level we were at.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the tariff increase was a domestic decision that doesn’t specifically target Canada, and that he had productive discussions with India’s Prime Minister on increasing the predictability of future tariffs. Other pulse crops face a 50 per cent tariff.

Townsend says the most disappointing thing is that this is further evidence to Canada that there is not a simple fix to the tariffs on the pulses in India.