OTTAWA – Canadian Federation of Agriculture President Ron Bonnett made the following statement in reaction to the report released earlier this week by Canada’s Agri-food Economic Strategy Roundtable.

“The Canadian Federation of Agriculture welcomes the Agri-food Economic Strategy Table’s report as a roadmap that helps clarify key measures that will leverage the sector’s immense potential, in both domestic and international markets.

We have long supported the call for a coordinated, whole-of-government approach to navigate the intense competitive pressures our sector faces. The key themes in the report reflect the issues we hear from farmers and their value chain partners, while articulating clear directions where industry and government can work together.

The proposed recommendations will move the sector towards achieving the ambitious domestic and export growth targets contained in the report:

• $140 billion in domestic sales (up from $110 billion)
• $85 billion in exports (up from $64.6 billion)

CFA also welcomes the attention that all six strategy tables have identified as competitiveness challenges to the entire Canadian economy.

Canada’s global brand, regulatory framework, infrastructure, technology adoption and labour are all critical issues for our sector, and we believe a whole-of-government commitment to addressing these issues and ‘owning the podium’ will bear fruit for Canadian agri-food and the broader Canadian economy.

CFA looks forward to working with our value chain partners and government to interpret the recommendations contained within this report, and to identify clear plans of action to see these barriers to growth addressed.”