Crop-topping lupins with paraquat risks the EU market

The head of one of WA’s peak grain export companies says industry and farmers need to “look very seriously” at the cost benefit of crop-topping lupins with paraquat compared with the potential market access risk the practice poses. Premium Grains Handlers managing director John Orr said “crop-topping” rather than pre-seeding paraquat application was leading to market access issues because the Australian maximum residue limit, or MRL, was more liberal than some key markets allowed. Paraquat, a herbicide registered for crop-topping in WA, is used on lupins and peas to spray ryegrass either before seeding or to stop weeds competing with the lupin plants. Mr Orr said Premium Grain Handlers had started paying a $10 per tonne premium to growers offering “paraquat-free lupins”, primarily because some markets’ paraquat residue limit was half that of Australia’s. “The practice of crop-topping paraquat is causing residues to lodge on the seed when it’s being harvested — those residues are being picked up and are affecting the more specialty side of the lupin market,” he said. “As an industry we have to look very seriously at the cost benefit of that practice and whether there are reasonable replacements that allow us to keep those high-value markets and still deal with the agronomic issue.” Mr Orr’s comments come after CBH issued a warning to its members in November that heavy-handed paraquat applications on lupins pre-harvest could lead to a “loss of access to the $51 million-a-year European lupin export market.” At the time, CBH marketing and trading general manager Jason Craig told growers in an email the EU had a “rigorous testing regime for chemical residues, managed by the European Food Safety Authority and the European Commission”. “Paraquat is banned for use within parts of the EU, however the European Food Safety Authority and European Commission maintains an maximum residue limits for imported goods at the lowest limit of residue detection,” Mr Craig wrote. “Detections in exports to the EU above this MRL could have significant consequences to the ongoing access to this market. “We therefore encourage growers to exercise caution with pre-harvest applications of paraquat on lupins as this could result in chemical residue detections in the strict European market and ultimately the loss of access to this market.” MRLs are the maximum concentration of a crop protection product legally permitted in or on food, agricultural commodities or animal feed. Australia’s MRL for paraquat on lupins is 1mg/kg — considerably higher than the 0.02mg/kg allowed by the European market, which takes about 40 per cent of Australia’s lupin exports — 132,900 tonnes — each year. Grains Industry Association of WA crop report author Michael Lamond said growers in the northern grain belt needed to be aware if they were crop-topping, they may have a residue and be locked out of the European market. “If they want to access that export market, they just can’t spray lupins with paraquat,” he said. Mr Orr echoed Mr Craig’s sentiments. “The limits on a couple of our customer destinations are much tougher than the Australian standard,” Mr Orr said. “Detection of paraquat on lupins have raised concerns. Those customers will stop buying lupins if that keeps happening.” National Working Party on Grain Protection chair Gerard McMullen said pulse MRLs were generally lower than for other commodities. “It is an issue where we supply product to markets who if they don’t have an MRL, they resort to CODEX,” he said. “You have markets like Egypt, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, who rely on Codex. So if you don’t have a Codex MRL, that causes a problem.” On the topic of prices, Mr Orr said post-harvest lupin prices had varied in the past four years — from $250/t in 2017 to $350/t in 2018, $385/t in 2019, and $530/t in 2020. Prices were hovering at about $365-$380 a tonne late last month, but Mr Orr said WA’s smaller lupin crop would this year face competition from the Eastern States and prices were likely to fall if there was a “reasonable finish” nationwide. “I think we will see lupins come off to about $360 at the late end of harvest, but be lucky to get to $380,” he said.