Minister Leal headed to the U.S. to promote trade

May 18, 2017

First stop is Madison, Wisconsin

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

Jeff Leal, Ontario’s Minister of Agriculture, is conducting a tour of six U.S. states over the coming weeks to promote trade.

Leal will visit Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Illinois.

But his first stop will be in Wisconsin, one of the top dairy-producing states in the U.S.

Defending supply management will be the Minister’s primary focus while in Wisconsin.

“We’re not going to cede one inch when it comes to supply management because it works so well for Ontario’s agricultural sector,” Minister Leal told Farms.com. “We’ve done nothing wrong with our ingredient strategy that prohibits dairy exports from the United States into Canada.”

Supply management has been a hot-button issue on both sides of the border.

During an April rally in Wisconsin, U.S. President Trump called supply management “unfair.”

Along with various dairy producers, Minister Leal, Premier Kathleen Wynne, Prime Minister Trudeau and David MacNaughton, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, came to supply management’s defence.

Apart from defending supply management in Wisconsin, the general goal of Minister Leal’s mission to the United States is to strengthen the relationships between the individual states and Ontario.

“(The six states) have a robust two-way trade with Ontario,” Minister Leal said. “We want to make sure that we continue to have positive trading relationships because it creates good jobs on both sides of the border.”

Representatives from Egg Farmers of Ontario and Ontario Federation of Agriculture will be joining Minister Leal on his trip to the U.S.

Farms.com has reached out to both organizations about the importance of attending these visits.

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