OTTAWA – Canada is in danger of falling short of its promise to increase food exports by 50 percent within six years, agriculture minister Ralph Goodale warned last week.
On Sept. 28, Goodale went before a parliamentary committee to announce a series of government trade programs to help correct the problem.
He urged the food industry to spend more on research and development and to spend more time developing off-shore markets.
“Canada’s export performance may fall short of our ambitious targets,” he told MPs and Senators at a committee hearing on Canada’s agricultural future.
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Processed foods and value-added products are creating the problem, not bulk exports, he said.
Canada’s federal and provincial agriculture ministers have accepted as a goal that Canadian food exports should increase in value from $13 billion last year to $20-$23 billion by the year 2000.
Goodale told the committee in a three-hour appearance Sept. 29, that any growth in the Canadian agriculture sector depends on meeting that goal.
He said it would increase net farm income by $235 million and add as many as 7,500 jobs in the Canadian economy.
But while Canada considers itself a great trading nation, the Canadian share of world agricultural markets outside the United States is falling.
“Our challenge is to reverse that,” said the minister.
At the end of October, Goodale plans to lead a group to Paris to attend the largest European processed food fair.
He told Sen. Dan Hays that the new emphasis on trade promotion will not cost the government much new money.
It will be making better use of existing funding and programs, he said.
Several programs included
Trade programs to help boost the export effort include:
- An agri-food trade service that will offer exporters a single point of contact with the government for information and requests for assistance.
- A Canadian agri-food marketing council to encourage private sector exporters by offering advice on how they can compete in specific markets and what government policies or regulations would help.
- An agri-food trade network to collect and make available export market information.
- A program called agri-food 2000, aimed at placing food specialists in embassies, training private sector personnel in export trading, promoting Canadian products at international trade shows and generally putting more emphasis on market development.
