The trade shock to Canada’s economy from US protectionism has prompted Canadian leaders to beat the drum on trade diversification — a point underscored by the Carney government’s goal of doubling non-US exports over the coming decade. Canada has been described as an agriculture and agri-food superpower; its agri-food sector contributed more than $100 billion to Canada’s exports in 2024, with about 38 percent going to non-US destinations. So it is already punching above its weight in contributing to Canada’s non-US trade diversification. But can it do more?
That is a lot easier said than done. For one thing, global trade gives every market plenty of choice in sourcing, and every market is free to set its own standards, including in areas such as the following examples from the European Union:
- Pesticide and other chemical residues in food products or soil contaminants that could harbour endemic pests: MRLs or maximum residue limits vary among countries (and can perhaps be set at arbitrarily low levels to serve as trade barriers, as India has accused in the case of the European Union’s aflatoxin limits, set well below the international Codex Alimentarius recommended levels, affecting exports such as peanuts).
- Production methods: The European Union, for instance, has banned washing chicken meat with chlorine to kill salmonella and other bacteria, not because of chlorine residues, but because the practice is seen as a compensating measure for poor hygiene and safety standards in the supply chain.
- Precautionary regulations: When the science on the safety of production techniques remains unsettled, certain imports may be banned on a precautionary basis, as has happened in the European Union when growth hormones have been used for livestock production or crops have been genetically modified to make them pesticide-resistant.
For agriculture and agri-foods, standards can be prohibitive for market access: if you do not meet them, you do not get in. In this context, how food is produced in Canada will play a major role in determining whether our shipments will be welcomed in new markets.
This is a particularly acute problem for Canada’s trade diversification push because of the supply chain integration with the United States, which is prioritizing the protection of its existing agricultural production model, even as global markets, especially in Europe and Asia, are moving in different directions.
No export irritant highlights this issue as clearly as glyphosate. According to Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Canada uses more than 25 million kilograms of glyphosate-based herbicides each year, making glyphosate the most widely applied pesticide in the country. Glyphosate, brought to market by Monsanto in 1974, is used across major crops, including wheat, canola, oats and pulses, both for weed control and, in some cases, to dry down crops before harvest. The product itself is overwhelmingly manufactured by US companies — most notably Bayer (which acquired Monsanto) and Corteva — which anchor glyphosate firmly within the North American production system.
New toxicology data shows that chronic, low-dose exposure to glyphosate residues disrupts the gut microbiome and liver metabolism. While the scientific evidence for a causal link from glyphosate to cancer is considered unsettled, there is no disputing that glyphosate residues have been found in various food products, urine samples of children, and even breast milk. There is also no disputing that glyphosate producers have settled lawsuits for more than $10 billion. And, most importantly for our present discussion, there is no disputing that glyphosate usage is considered a health issue in many of the very markets into which Canada hopes to expand.
The European Union, for example, has restricted or discouraged glyphosate usage, applying the precautionary principle under Regulation (EC) No. 1107/2009, which allows regulators to restrict or discourage pre-harvest uses that are more likely to leave higher residues; Italy has banned pre-harvest applications outright; and Germany is phasing out glyphosate entirely. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture in India has tightened residue testing at the border for imported pulses and cereals under a 2022 national order from the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. These are not marginal markets; they are among the fastest-growing destinations for Canadian agri-food exports.
The Italian measures should be a wakeup call: when the authorities moved to restrict pre-harvest use of glyphosate, some Italian buyers quietly cut back purchases of Canadian durum wheat and shifted sourcing to countries more closely aligned with EU regulation, such as Russia and Türkiye. Canadian wheat remained legal under EU residue limits, but it became harder to sell without regulatory friction.
More generally, the European Commission monitoring reports show a marked increase in pesticide-residue testing and border rejections since 2019, particularly for cereals and pulses. Agricultural imports are now more heavily scrutinized than before, and regulators are more willing to detain or reject shipments that do not meet their standards.
Once you strip away the rhetoric, the question of glyphosate stops being a regulatory or agronomic debate and becomes a trade exposure problem. Countries that apply stricter residue limits or restrict pre-harvest use of glyphosate can effectively close their markets to Canadian crops, regardless of Canada’s domestic policy choices.
Old Rules, Changing Enforcement
For many years, regulatory convergence with the United States made sense. The United States was viewed as a reliable global standards setter, applying science-based, predictable standards that were generally aligned with international norms. Canadian trade thinkers Michael Hart and Bill Dymond once described cross-border regulatory disputes as the “tyranny of small differences,” reflecting the belief that minor divergences could be managed because both countries operated within broadly similar frameworks.
That assumption, however, is harder to make today.
In February 2026, the United States invoked the Defense Production Act of 1950 to secure domestic access to glyphosate-based herbicides, directing manufacturers to prioritize US agricultural demand before filling export orders. With this move, the United States doubled down on glyphosate, making it a national security issue; at the same time, the move ensured American farmers would be served first during supply tightness.
Glyphosate alternatives exist and they are already in use. Many European producers rely on integrated weed management systems that reduce reliance on chemical pesticides, in part because of growing weed resistance to traditional herbicides. Other examples include crop rotation, mechanical controls and biological products. Biopesticides derived from fungi, bacteria and naturally occurring compounds are increasingly used to manage weeds and plant health, particularly for crops headed to residue-sensitive markets.
In this context, aligning with the United States works against Canada’s interests in three distinct ways:
- it risks Canada’s market access globally and thus potentially compromises the trade diversification objectives;
- it makes Canada’s agricultural production dependent on an input for which it does not have security of supply because of US domination of production and express US policy choices; and
- it locks Canada into a mature technology that is already being innovated against by both nature, in the form of glyphosate-resistant weeds, and by human beings, in the form of alternative technologies.
If Canada wants to sell to markets with increasingly stringent agricultural regulations, its exports must meet those standards. There is no workaround, and no diplomatic persuasion can resolve the issue.
Meeting those standards might be considered a burden: put another way, it might be considered a specialization strategy. Producers that operate to the cleaner standard can sell everywhere; those that do not are limited to fewer markets. In trade, the customer is always right — and the border always has the last word.
