By Bruce Cochrane.
The Chair of the Canadian Pork Council credits support from U.S. farmers and rural political leaders for a softening of the anti-North American Free Trade Agreement rhetoric.
The 2017 edition of World Pork Expo was held last week in Des Moines.
Canadian Pork Council Chair Rick Bergmann, who met with officials of the National Pork Producers Council, pork producers and with Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey, says there's been a lot of discussion about NAFTA.
Rick Bergmann-Canadian Pork Council:
For me personally, when I was at a show here in Des Moines in January that's exactly when there was discussion about NAFTA and reviewing or scrapping, those were the words that were being used.
At that time it got some traction on the media and discussions and so on.
When we look at all the different models of trade within the world and we look at NAFTA, it's a program that does work and it works well for agriculture.
I think agriculture is the shining star within NAFTA between the U.S. and Canada.
We just need to ensure that that stays strong and we continue to build on that.
I believe that there's good folks out there like Bill Northey and Sonny Perdue and I believe that their common sense approach and their understanding of the importance of agriculture and agricultural trade will lead us out of the slippery slope that we're in right now.
When it comes down to trade between Canada and the U.S. what I've heard here at the show is resounding that it's been very positive and it has helped family farms here and I can say with full knowledge that it's really benefitted farms back in Canada as well.
Bergmann says the message he has heard at many levels in the U.S. has been, what isn't broken don't try to fix.
He notes Canada's pork trade with the U.S. is an integrated model that works well and there's been numerous successes so it's something that needs to be protected.
Source: Farmscape