By Bruce Cochrane.
The President of Canada Pork International says the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with Europe will give Canadian pork the opportunity to distinguish itself in that market.
On October 30 Canada's Prime Minister and top officials of the European Union signed the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.
Greg Giokas, the President of Canada Pork International, says trade agreements are critical to the success of Canadian pork exports.
Greg Giokas-Canada Pork International:
As the population of the planet expands and, as we see countries like China that has a very large population where they've experienced poverty and had trouble feeding themselves, food is a big issue so we are uniquely placed in Canada.
We have the land, we have the water, we have the ability, we have the policies, we have governments that consult and develop policies based on feedback from the consumer, the processor, from the entire value chain.
This is very powerful and what it means is that we have a position as a food supplier that is reliable, sustainable food production of high quality and reliability for the consumers in these markets.
To access those markets we need trade agreements.
We can't just sell food, put it on a ship and put it into a market place.
You have to have the access.
There are tariffs, there are phytosanitary restrictions.
There are all kinds of restrictions that you need to meet.
These get negotiated in a trade agreement.
We have a recent agreement with the EU which will provide in total, it's 75 thousand extra tonnes of carcass weight, which we already have five thousand tonnes access.
That adds up to 80 thousand tonnes that we didn't have before.
The 75 thousand tonnes that are new means that there will be more interest and more ability to put product in larger volume into Europe.
Giokas says Europe is a high value market and Canadian quality will distinguish itself in that market so this is a vey important development.
Source: Farmscape