Minister Bibeau wraps up successful trade mission to Indo-Pacific Region

May 02, 2023

OTTAWA, ON, The Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, concluded a successful one-week trade mission to Japan and Singapore. The mission underscored one of the Government of Canada's top priorities under the Indo Pacific Strategy (IPS): to expand our partnerships and trade relationships in this region.

Throughout the outreach, Minister Bibeau took part in conversations with her international counterparts and in-market stakeholders, where she reinforced Canada's commitment to deepening and diversifying agriculture trade, promoting Canadian agriculture and agri-food products, sustainable global food trade, and food security.

In Japan, Minister Bibeau met with key Japanese agri-food stakeholders, Canadian industry associations, and Canadian businesses in Tokyo, to highlight the economic relationship between Canada and Japan, and discussed increasing trade and investment ties in the region.

Minister Bibeau also participated in the G7 Agriculture Ministers' Meeting in Miyazaki, where she discussed with her counterparts net zero initiatives, sustainable agriculture, resilient agricultural systems, and food security. The Minister also held bilateral meetings with key partners, including Japan's Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Nomura Tetsuro.

While in Singapore, Minister Bibeau attended the Food and Hotel Asia trade show with Alvin Tan, Singapore's Minister of State for Trade and Industry. During the opening ceremony, she highlighted Canadian exporters, as well as their high-quality products and the refreshed Canada Brand that helps Canada stand out in increasingly crowded and competitive global marketplaces.

Minister Bibeau also joined Koh Poh Koon, Singapore's Senior Minister of State of Sustainability and the Environment, for a bilateral meeting to discuss Singapore's '30 by 30' Initiative to build up its agri-food industry's capacity, and how Canada can contribute to Singapore's food security goals.

Finally, Minister Bibeau hosted a round table discussion in Singapore with the Canada-ASEAN Business Council to discuss opportunities and challenges for Canadian companies operating in the region.

Source : Newswire.ca

Video: Western Canadian Agriculture: Hard Times Made the World's Best Farmers

Western Canadian agriculture produced the most advanced farmers in the world not through abundance but through adversity. The crow rate fell. The wheat price went nowhere. The brown envelopes stopped.

When the subsidies disappeared, the bad farmers left and the good ones stayed. And the ones who stayed could not just grow wheat anymore. They started growing lentils and canola and peas and flax and faba beans. They built crop rotation. They got serious about agronomy because there was no government backstop. That process produced the Western Canadian agriculture Dennis Bulani describes in this clip: the most advanced, most educated farming culture in the world.

His contrast with Iowa corn and soybean farmers is sharp. At a DeKalb farmer meeting in Okoboji, Iowa, he asked what crop rotation they ran. Beans on corn stubble, corn on bean stubble. How do you fertilize? The co-op agronomist handles it. Have you considered other crops? No need. We make so much money on corn and soybeans. Western Canadian agriculture was never allowed that comfort. And now those Iowa farmers are watching soybean markets lock up with China and corn prices slide, and they do not have the agronomy knowledge or the research base to pivot. Western Canadian farmers adapted on a dime because they had done it before.

Dennis also makes the case that Western Canadian agriculture keeps adapting in real time. Low commodity prices over the past year have pushed growers to look seriously at precision spot-spray technology. He knows a neighbor who bought a sprayer with the seeing-eye system and sprayed only 80 out of 320 acres. As a chemical retailer Dennis acknowledges that will affect his sales. He supports it anyway, because if it advances Canadian agriculture and makes farmers money, that is a good outcome.

The lesson Dennis draws from the tale of two farms: continuous improvement is the only durable strategy. When canola was $22 a bushel some growers went to Arizona instead of the Crop Production Show. When the price came down those same growers came back to the research and the discipline. Products do not go on Rack Petroleum's shelves unless they pass a replicated trial first. That is what Western Canadian agriculture built through hard times: farmers who do the work whether the times demand it or not.

Dennis Bulani is CEO of Rack Petroleum and Ultimate Yield in Biggar, Saskatchewan. Dan Aberhart hosts GTF Productions, Western Canadian Agriculture's foremost live briefing platform and its foremost AI training platform for ag operators