The Director of International Trade, Government and Media Relations with Canadian Meat Council says beef and pork producers and processors will be looking for a revised NAFTA that maintains the benefits it has created for North American Agriculture and results in greater coordination of food safety programs.
Rounds two and three of the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement are planned to take place in September.
Ron Davidson, the Director of International Trade, Government and Media Relations with Canadian Meat Council, says our North American livestock producers and meat processors are confident that the negotiators from all three countries understand their perspective and that, at the end of the days, when we get there, that there will be a positive outcome.
We will be looking not only for a positive outcome to the negotiations but one that actually goes forward and is forward looking. We’re looking for an outcome that will actually enhance any challenges that we currently have with unnecessary restrictions at the border but will also look at doing joint scientific and joint risk assessments so that we can then have a more common perspective in looking at our regulations.
When Canadians and Americans go across the border, thousands every day, neither one side nor the other side thinks about the safety of food on the other side of the border. We have the consumers clearly, who are traveling for business or traveling for pleasure, they’re not worrying about the safety of food so we shouldn’t be creating unnecessary obstacles at the border for the commercial trade in food products.
~ Ron Davidson, Canadian Meat Council
Davidson notes the livestock and meat processing industries in North America are already well integrated. He says, because they are all export dependent, they share a joint perspective on how to maintain competitiveness and increase jobs in their respective markets.
