Grainswest - Fall 2024

Fall 2024 Grains West 34 growth struggles to meet demand. It recommends Canada monitor and potentially restrict acquisition of agri- food assets by foreign investors whose interests do not align with its own. It also suggests the country adjust policy to address the erosion of rules-based trade, which has enabled the use of agri-food trade as a “geo-economic weapon.” This includes sudden export bans, export taxes and strategic stockpiling that supports domestic prices and denies product to other nations. Food is commonly used as a weapon in trade disputes, said Al Mussell, CAPI’s director of research and one of the report’s lead authors. For example, following the announcement of Canada’s tariffs on imports of Chinese electric vehicles and steel, China announced its launch of an anti- dumping investigation of Canadian canola exports. “It’s a way for countries potentially to intimidate one another economically,” he said. “Tariffs on farm and food products create impacts throughout agri-food supply chains and can have broadly felt effects. A lot of these measures are precisely what the multilateral rules-based international trading system, the World Trade Organization and its various agreements, was designed to try and prevent.” Such trade issues affect farm productivity when they restrict the marketplace. “In Canada, our agricultural production capacity vastly exceeds our domestic market needs in many products—grains, oilseeds, pork, beef, potatoes and some others,” said Mussell. “We need industry investment that will lead to productivity growth, and for that to happen we need reliable market access outside of Canada to sell our products.” EFFECTIVE POLICY DRIVES INVESTMENT A damaging knock-on effect of market uncertainty is its negative influence on private sector investment. Continued innovation in biologicals, crop protection products, precision application technology and variety development are critical to sustain productivity growth, said Pierre Petelle, president and CEO of CropLife Canada. Canadian farmers are poised and ready to adopt such innovations, he added. “But a sometimes slow and unpredictable regulatory environment puts Canadian growers at a disadvantage when it comes to access to innovation next to some of its biggest competitors,” said Petelle. For example, delayed regulatory guidance slowed the use of gene editing for much-needed new variety development. “As growers continue to face changing climate conditions, new pest pressures and changing consumer demands, they need timely access to the latest crop varieties, and we need a regulatory environment that enables that.” Petelle is similarly critical of regulatory impediments in crop protection. “If we are going to attract investment in new products, we need a regulatory environment that is clear, predictable and science-based,” he said. While he recognizes the Pest Management Regulatory Agency’s (PMRA) strong global reputation as a science-based regulator, Petelle questioned the direction of the organization. He points to its transformation initiatives of the past three years as a distraction driven by politics that does not deliver benefits to Canadians or the agriculture sector. “We are seeing a worrying drop in the PMRA’s performance outcomes as a result.” Canadian agriculture can drive economic growth in tandem with its own productivity, he said. Here again, he argued, the regulatory environment must enable this to happen. Anthony Parker agrees. He is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency commissioner of plant breeders’ rights and Canada’s head delegate to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants. Parker echoed Petelle’s call for conditions more conducive to growth. To secure investment in Canada’s agriculture sector requires the creation of a policies that incentivize and reward risk-taking and entrepreneurship. Strong and effective intellectual property (IP) rights provide such an environment, he said. For example, plant breeders’ rights create a fair and level playing field where public entities, as well as small, medium and large companies can effectively compete in an open and free marketplace. “IP ownership is now the most valuable asset a business can own,” said Parker. Industry and policymakers have long recognized IP rights’ ownership drives a knowledge-based economy, said Parker. The 2017 Barton report rung this bell almost a decade ago. A series of recommendations written by Dominic Barton, then-chair of the federal Advisory Council on Economic Growth, he envisioned a substantial increase in Canadian agricultural exports. Canada, Barton wrote, could become the world’s second-largest food exporter, up from fifth. “We need industry investment that will lead to productivity growth, and for that to happen we need reliable market access outside of Canada to sell our products.” —Al Mussell FEATURE