The Canola Council of Canada (CCC) is applauding the historic signing of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).
After seven years of negotiations, the CETA agreement was signed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the weekend.
"Anything we can do to get more value from our canola products and export markets is good news for the canola industry," said CCC Vice President of Government Relations Brian Innes. "It means we can bring more value back here to Canada and that translates into more value for growers. So what we see is that with the agreement in Europe we're now on track to get rid of our tariffs on canola oil going into the European Union and that's very positive."
He notes right now most canola exports to the EU are in the form of canola seed for biodiesel production and the CETA agreement would allow for canola oil to be exported as well. The deal represents an opportunity to grow exports of canola oil by about $90 million per year.
CETA also includes a commitment to create a biotechnology working group to address the timeliness of approvals for genetically engineered products, science-based policy and the development of a low level presence policy.
Source : Portageonline