Exporters of Canadian agricultural products defied the predictions, the
odds and world trends in 2001 to post a record year.
Canada’s food industry exported a record $26.48 billion worth of
products last year, more than 62 percent of it to the United States.
The country’s share of world food trade edged up to 3.79 percent, just
shy of the goal of hitting four percent by 2005.
“This was a great year,” said Marc Gervais of Agriculture Canada’s
international marketing bureau. “Our exports increased despite a
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Even though the value of food imports rose more than 10 percent to
$19.2 billion, the 13.1 percent surge in exports produced a food trade
surplus of more than $7 billion, the largest single factor in Canada’s
overall merchandise trade surplus.
Gervais said it was due to a variety of factors, including increased
higher-value processed products in Canada’s export basket and a shorter
than expected economic slowdown.
Wheat and durum exports topped the list with $3.9 billion in sales.
Cattle and beef sales combined were worth more than $3.1 billion.
Canola exports were worth $1.3 billion, a 13 percent increase over 2000
figures.
On almost all food trade fronts, it was a record or near-record year:
- The value of slaughter cattle sold rose 46 percent to $1.6 billion.
- Frozen pork exports were up a third to $631 million.
- Canada sold $711 million worth of french fries abroad.
- The percentage of export sales made up by processed food was 53.3
percent last year, compared to 40.6 percent six years ago. Meanwhile,
bulk grain sales now make up 18 percent of the value of Canadian
exports.
- Among provinces, Alberta’s $6 billion in exports was second only to
Ontario. Saskatchewan was the third largest exporter and Manitoba was
fifth.
Japan was a distant second to the U.S. as a Canadian customer. The
European Union, which bought $1.3 billion in Canadian food goods, was
an even more distant third.
Canada’s share of world trade has been increasing since 1996 when
federal and provincial ministers and industry leaders set a goal of
increasing it to four percent by 2005, roughly the level it was at
three decades ago.
“One of the reasons our percentage of world trade has grown quite
quickly is that our exports are going up while world trade has been
falling,” said Gervais.
“If we continue this trend, we could reach the target for 2005 by 2003.”
