Crop shipper AGT sees resolution of India-Canada pulse trade snag

By Rod Nickel

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, March 28 (Reuters) - Canada's AGT Food and Ingredients Inc, one of the world's biggest exporters of peas and lentils, expects India to extend an exemption for Canada within days from a crop fumigation policy that threatened to derail trade, Chief Executive Murad Al-Katib said on Tuesday.

India's current exemption for Canada from its requirement that pulse crops be fumigated in the country of origin with methyl bromide, an insect-killing gas, was due to expire on Friday. But Al-Katib told Reuters that multiple sources in India have assured him a three- or six-month extension of the exemption for Canada was imminent, although no official announcement has been made.

(Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)