Farm Credit Canada says Canada’s reputation as a reliable supplier of safe high quality food along with new trade agreements are creating new opportunities for Canadian agriculture.
“Future Of Processing In Ontario and North America” was discussed last week during the 2018 London Swine Conference.
Craig Klemmer, a Principle Agricultural Economist with Farm Credit Canada, says we produce a lot more products in Canada than we’re going to consume so we need to look at exports and some recent announcements will lower the cost of getting Canadian products into new markets.
When we think about the pork sector we’ve seen two agreements that have recently been announced and that is CETA, which gives us increased access into the European market. We have a high quality, high value, safe, incredibly good product here that we’re producing and these market opportunities are going to add value back to producers. It’s a high value market. We also just had the CPTPP and that’s giving access to some emerging and expanding economies, thinking about Malaysia and Vietnam where pork is a very important part of their diet and we have a good product here in Canada that’s increasingly demanded in these economies and therefore lower transaction costs are going to create opportunities.
Canada is a top producer of agricultural products across the board. Obviously the value of the Canadian dollar is going to come into play. We do have some higher costs of production throughout but some of it’s a give and take and where that opportunity is. We have a good brand too that really helps get our product into other markets. People want that high quality, safe Canadian branded product that we’re producing and those are all helping us in the export markets as well.
~ Craig Klemmer, Farm Credit Canada
Klemmer says Canada is competing against the world and having a strong processing, value added sector adds value back to the producers and creates opportunities for Canadian agriculture.
