Japan cancels purchase of unsafe Australian barley

TOKYO, May 14 (Reuters) - Japan cancelled the purchase of 20,000 tonnes of Australian food barley after the shipment was found to contain too much pesticide, Japanese health and farm ministries officials said on Wednesday.

"We have found pesticides that exceeded our standard for the (barley) shipment which arrived last month," a farm ministry official said.

The farm ministry official said the ministry decided to cancel the purchase of the Australian barley as the shipment failed to meet Japan's food safety standard under the contract.

The imported barley will not be distributed in the market as food, the official said.

The Japanese government controls all imports of wheat and barley by holding purchase tenders.

The official said this is the first time Japan has cancelled the purchase of wheat or barley.

He added that the shipment of barley which arrived last month was from a tender that was held in February.

On Feb. 28, the farm ministry conducted a tender under the simultaneous buy and sell (SBS) system, in which it bought 20,000 tonnes of barley from Australia.

The SBS tender scheme allows users to negotiate directly with trading firms and decide the grain's origin, price and quantity before they send bids to the government.