By Bruce Cochrane
The chair of the Canadian Pork Council is encouraging pork producers across Canada to take the time to impress upon candidates running in the federal election the importance of Canada's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
This past weekend negotiators representing the 12 nations involved in efforts to create a Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement finalized a deal.
Rick Bergmann, the chair of the Canadian Pork Council, notes, as part of its Pork Industry Platform for the 2015 Federal Election, CPC has identified trade as one of the pork industry's top priorities.
Rick Bergmann-Canadian Pork Council:
The Trans-Pacific Partnership will provide Canada with preferential access to a big pile of countries and that would amount to roughly 40 percent of our world economy so our doors have again been opened up in regards to trade with other countries so it's a really positive thing for our industry.
This TPP deal does have to go through Parliament for ratification and it makes it even more so important now for our members across the country to be in touch with those who are running for leadership positions and again just making mention how critical that is for our sustainability to have a strong export trade.
That would certainly be my encouragement is to have members across the country take time out of their schedules and meet with those who are running for these leadership positions to again instill in them the importance of this agreement.
Bergmann notes the Canadian Pork Council represents about 7,000 farms across the country and this agreement will really put some wind in the sails for producers.
He says the agreement will benefit not only producers but the whole value chain and the over 100,000 people it employs so the opportunity to keep those links in that chain strong is a super deal for Canada.
Source: Farmscape