Agricultural Commodities & Seeds · Specify / Buy
Commodity quality specification and acceptance
Most commodity disputes are not quality failures. They are specification failures — an attribute nobody named, a test method nobody agreed, or an acceptance point nobody fixed. This page works through the attribute set for the commodity group you are buying, the documents that carry each figure, and the sampling, inspection and weighing decisions that determine who carries the risk on arrival. It publishes no limits: the numbers belong in your contract, drawn from the official grading standard and the destination requirement.
What are you buying?
Attribute sets are not shared between commodity groups. A clause copied from one group into another is where the gaps come from.
Use this when
- You are writing or reviewing the quality clause of a purchase or sale contract.
- An offer quotes a grade name and nothing else, and you need to know what is still undefined.
- You need to decide which documents must accompany the shipment and who issues them.
- A cargo is being rejected or discounted on arrival and you are checking what the contract actually fixed.
- You are buying seed for sowing rather than for processing and need the different attribute and document set.
- You need the sampling, analysis and weighing method agreed before the vessel or container loads.
How this works
- 1. Pick the commodity group. Pulses, cereals, rice, oilseeds, edible seeds and planting seed do not share an attribute set, and a clause copied across groups leaves gaps.
- 2. Name every attribute the group actually trades on, and give each one a figure, a tolerance and a test method. An attribute without a method is not specified.
- 3. State the basis for each figure explicitly — as-is or dry matter, and the moisture level the weight refers to.
- 4. Fix the document set: certificate of analysis, weight and quality certificate, origin, and any official certificate your destination requires, naming who issues it.
- 5. Fix the acceptance point: where sampling happens, which laboratory is final, what the tolerance for retest is, and whether load-port or discharge-port results govern.
- 6. Agree the remedy in advance — rejection, discount scale or arbitration — because it is unnegotiable once the cargo has arrived.
What this page does not determine
- It does not grade your cargo, and it does not tell you whether a lot passes. Only an accredited analysis on a properly drawn sample can do that.
- It publishes no grade limits, no maximum moisture, no defect tolerance and no test-weight figure as an Allzone number. Every figure comes from the official grading standard, the destination requirement or the contract you negotiate.
- It makes no food-safety, mycotoxin, residue, microbiological, phytosanitary or import-eligibility conclusion, and it does not confirm that a lot may legally enter any market.
- It gives no agronomic advice. It publishes no seeding rate, no germination expectation, no seed treatment and no yield statement.
- It makes no price, premium, discount or market statement. Commercial terms are negotiated, not derived from a page.
- It is not legal or contractual advice, and it does not replace the trade rules, incoterms or arbitration terms your contract adopts.
- Fix every quality figure, tolerance, test method, inspection point and weight basis in the written contract before shipment, and settle only against the independent analysis and weighing method the contract names.
Relevant Allzone commodities to investigate
These are catalogue identities relevant to the decisions on this page. A listing here is not an offer of a specific grade, quality, origin or crop year, and it is not a suitability, documentary or compliance claim.
- LentilsPulse identity traded on size, colour, splits, foreign material and moisture. Every one of those is a contract figure, not a product property.
- Dry PeasPulse identity where splits, bleaching and moisture dominate the acceptance discussion.
- ChickpeasPulse identity where calibre count per unit mass is usually the leading term.
- Dry BeansPulse identity traded by type and colour class, with defects specified separately.
- WheatCereal identity where protein, test weight, falling number and moisture are separate contract terms.
- BarleyCereal identity where end use (feed or malting) changes which figures matter.
- Corn (Maize)Cereal identity with broken-kernel, foreign-material and moisture terms quoted separately.
- Long-Grain RiceMilled rice identity where broken percentage, milling degree and crop year are contract terms.
- SoybeansOilseed identity where moisture, foreign material and damage are separate terms.
- Canola SeedOilseed identity where oil content and moisture are quoted on a declared basis.
- Sesame SeedEdible seed identity where purity, oil content, colour and free fatty acid are separate terms.
- Sunflower SeedsEdible seed identity specified on calibre, kernel content and moisture.
- QuinoaSpecialty seed identity where saponin removal state and purity are specified terms.
- Alfalfa SeedForage seed identity traded for sowing, where the contract terms are seed-quality attributes rather than food attributes.
- Seed PotatoesPlanting material identity with its own certification and phytosanitary document set, verified with your authority.
Where this comes from, and what it cannot tell you
Official national grading standards (e.g. Canadian Grain Commission grade tables)
Supports: Grade names are defined by published tables of attributes and limits, and those tables are the authority for any figure used in a contract.
Limitation: Standards differ by country, crop and crop year, and a grade name alone does not carry the destination's own requirements.
Canada and other producing countries · Revised periodically; verify the edition in force for the crop year traded.
International trade association contract forms and arbitration rules
Supports: Standard contract forms allocate sampling, analysis, weighing, tolerance and dispute procedure, and those allocations decide acceptance.
Limitation: Which form applies is a commercial negotiation. Nothing on this page states which rules govern your trade.
International · Forms are amended by their issuing bodies.
Destination import and plant-health requirements
Supports: Importing countries impose their own documentary and inspection requirements independent of the commercial contract.
Limitation: Requirements change without notice and must be verified with the competent authority for the exact shipment.
Destination-specific · Verify before every shipment.
Where to go next
- Moisture basis and shrinkage weight calculatorOnce the moisture basis is named in the contract, the weight arithmetic is done there.
- Food-grade documentation and CoA verificationIf the material enters a food process as an ingredient, generic food-grade documentation stays with its canonical Food Ingredients owner.
- Feed ingredient specification and documentationFeed-channel specification, nutrient declarations and feed documentation are owned by Feed Ingredients.