The owner of a northern Manitoba honey farm says Canadian producers are in a sticky situation as China’s tariffs on Canadian canola could mean less food for bees this year.
Steven Larocque and his family have operated Arctic Gold Honey in Thompson for about seven years, producing around 1,300 to 2,200 kilograms of honey a year.
Arctic Gold Honey’s bees don’t pollinate canola as they make their honey, but Larocque says China’s 100 per cent tariff on Canadian canola exports — imposed last month in response to Canada’s duties on electric vehicles, aluminum and steel — will sting other honey producers.
While Canada’s honey industry hasn’t been subject to any specific tariffs, bees gather nectar — a primary food source — and pollen from the flowers of the canola plant, which in turn can produce benefits for the canola, according to a provincial fact sheet.
But “if you’re impacted as a canola farmer, and you know that you can’t sell that canola, [you’re] not going to seed canola in that field,” Larocque told CBC News on Wednesday.
“If they’re not planting those kinds of crops, where are the bees going to go and make honey?”
Larocque said his business will, however, feel the pinch of Canada’s trade war with the U.S. in packaging materials, since it would be difficult to find other sources for the 500 cases of jars he imports from the U.S. each year.
“It’s not like you can buy them from a different supplier for cheaper,” he said. “The problem with, say, places like Amazon is that it’s not consistent. You may be able to get containers one time, but next time, they could be sold out.”
He hopes to stockpile packaging materials so he can maintain consistent shelf prices over the next year or two.
“At the end of the day, it all comes down to [whether] the customer is going to pay that price for that jar of honey, regardless of how much is taxed from different avenues.”
The executive director of the Canadian Honey Council says the potential of U.S. tariffs on Canadian honey exports is also causing anxiety among honey farmers, as tariffs would “probably decimate” their market.
Any major trade disruptions to Canada’s honey industry would be “felt dramatically” on the Prairies, said Rod Scarlett.
“If we can’t displace that market, then that production that beekeepers have on the Prairies either may not get sold or may have to get sold at dramatically lower prices, which is below the cost of production, which then jeopardizes the operation completely.”
Manitoba accounted for 19 per cent of the 92 million pounds (roughly 41 million kilograms) of honey produced across Canada in 2023, according to Statistics Canada.
But Manitoba exported the most honey of all Canadian provinces the same year, shipping out 38 per cent of the country’s honey exports, Statistics Canada says.
The two main buyers, the United States and Japan, bought $46 million worth of exported honey in 2023 — 95 per cent of Canada’s exports, the data shows.
Some markets in Southeast Asia may be interested in Canadian honey, said Scarlett, but that pivot can’t be done at a moment’s notice.
Farmers also fear Canada may introduce retaliatory tariffs on U.S. imports of queen bees, sugar syrups to feed bees in the spring and beekeeping equipment, he said.
Queen bee imports from the U.S. allow beekeepers to introduce them to new hives — and begin production — sooner, Scarlett said. About 260,000 of the 343,000 queen bees that Canada imported in 2023 came from the U.S., according to Statistics Canada.
‘Cumulative effect’ on crops
Canadian honey producers also face a trade barrier unrelated to tariffs when it comes to the European Union, which has strict rules around the use and labelling of products that contain genetically modified foods, said Scarlett.
That includes honey from bees that came into contact with canola pollen, he said.
Pollination itself would become another concern if Canada’s bee population is affected by the trade war, as they’re a major pollinator of blueberries, cranberries and canola, said Scarlett.
“It’s a cumulative effect here,” he said. “Although we’re a small industry, we really, you know, strike above our heads in the impact that it has in the agricultural community.”
Beekeepers often ship their bees across the country to farmers who need them to pollinate their crops, and any hit to the population could mean a bee shortage, according to Rob Currie, professor emeritus at the University of Manitoba’s entomology department.
It could also have consequences worldwide, he said, impacting “the bees available for pollination of crops on a more global scale beyond Manitoba.”
Scarlett said the honey industry has been keeping an eye out for news as it pushes the federal government to exempt queen bees from any potential countermeasures.
“We as an industry — and just like everybody else, kind of, in the agricultural sector — just don’t have a real good handle about how much in depth those tariffs will go, and how much in depth will the retaliatory tariffs have to go,” Scarlett said.
But there is a silver lining, Scarlett says, as sales of Canadian honey have gone up in parts of the country amid heightened interest in locally made products.
“That has a big impact on the ability of beekeepers to maintain an economic level that is above the cost of production.”
