Only about 50 per cent of the food grown in Canada is processed here, a Senate report found
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
Canada’s value-added food industry is full of potential, the Senate committee on agriculture and forestry found.
The committee spent about one year visiting facilities and speaking with stakeholders in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and British Columbia to learn about growth opportunities in the sector and barriers preventing such prospects.
The committee’s findings are published in its report: Growing Canada’s Value-Added Food Sector.
One of the sector’s main hurdles is a lack of processing facilities.
Canada only processes about half of the food the country’s farmers produce, the committee found.
“I certainly found that to be surprising and I had hoped it might be more,” Sen. Diane Griffin, chair of the Senate ag committee, told Farms.com. “When you consider the huge acreages that we have of some products like wheat, canola, lentils and soybeans, it’s not possible for us to eat everything we have in Canada. And right now, we don’t have enough facilities to process” these crops.
The report contains nine recommendations for the feds to consider in reaching an improved national value-added agri-food sector.
The first proposal addresses a national labour shortage.
The ag industry needs an additional 59,000 workers, Griffin said. She hopes the federal government’s newly announced Agri-Food Immigration Pilot will help address those concerns.
“I’m hoping it’s going to be a very useful tool,” she said. “It would be a huge first step and would send the right signals. I hope it works well and, within a relatively short period, we see it nationwide.”
Another item the federal government should address is transportation.
Especially for the landlocked Prairie provinces, being able to transport products to their secondary locations in a manageable amount of time is important, Griffin said.
“Transportation is a huge factor for them,” she said. “There’s places where there are bottlenecks either on highways or on the railway. Transportation is very important if you’re going to move agricultural – especially fresh agricultural – products.”
Other recommendations in the committee’s report include supporting supply management, innovation and increasing trade.
The federal government has 150 days to respond to the report.
Planning for some significant changes would be long-term because the feds likely need provincial cooperation, but Ottawa can make some updates on its own, Griffin said.
Senator Diane Griffin