NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. – Federal and provincial agriculture ministers last week endorsed an ambitious proposal that Canada aim to expand the value of food exports by as much as 80 percent over the next eight years.
It would require more farm-level food production, a multi-billion dollar investment in the processing sector, adding an estimated 130,000 positions to the food industry workforce and changing some government policies to encourage growth.
“The target is an aggressive one, an ambitious one, but I think it is realistic,” Ken Ash, director-general of economic and policy analysis for Agriculture Canada, said in an
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Saskatchewan agriculture minister Eric Upshall concurred. He said regulations that discourage or limit production, including “rigid” supply management rules, will have to be changed.
“We have to keep our eye on volumes and not on dollar goals,” he said.
“And if a province like Saskatchewan is to take advantage and play its role, systems like supply management are going to have to become more flexible to allow us to produce more milk and eggs and chicken for that export market.”
Officially, the goal proposed by the Canadian Agri-food Marketing Council is that Canada try to claim four percent of world food trade by 2005. Last year, it was 3.2 percent.
Ash said while the goal is volume-based, the increase would boost the value of exports from $22 billion last year to between $30 billion and $40 billion.
Earlier, inside the room where federal and provincial agriculture ministers met July 15 and 16, Ash had told ministers the expansion would require substantial effort, and perhaps some policy changes, by both governments and industry.
“There are lots of potential gains but there also are things that must be done to get them,” he said.
Since much of the increase will be in processed goods from the value-added sector, the Agriculture Canada official said governments must develop policies that promote production and trade.
It would mean more money for research into how to preserve the resource base and productivity, faster registration and assessment of new chemicals and fertilizers and changes in any regulations that limit production or export.
Ash said governments and exporters also will have to more aggressively exploit market access rules won in earlier trade negotiations.
And government policies would have to encourage investment, since as much as $8 billion would have to be invested in processing plants to increase capacity.
He said reaching the trade goal could create 260,000 new food sector jobs. Even taking account of job losses due to industry restructuring, net job creation could be as high as 130,000, he said.
Ted Bilyea, president of Maple Leaf Foods International and chair of the government-appointed and funded Canadian Agri-food Marketing Council, told ministers that while the value of Canadian exporters has risen to $22 billion from $13 billion in recent years, Canada’s share of the world market has been declining.
