By Bruce Cochrane.
Saskatchewan's Minister of Agriculture says trade agreements such as the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement with Europe and the 12 nation Trans-Pacific Partnership offer an opportunity to expand the province's pork production.
Saskatchewan's Agriculture Minister discussed the role of pork production in the provincial economy and way of life last night as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2016 in Saskatoon.
Lyle Stewart says the pork industry over the past 30 to 35 years has quietly expanded but reports out of countries like China and Japan that there's growing demand for protein create huge opportunities for further expansion.
Lyle Stewart-Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister:
The CETA agreement substantially increases the tonnage of pork that we can export to European countries and that creates an opportunity in itself.
TPP is a substantially larger opportunity, 800 million consumers, most of which are a little more prosperous every year in the Pacific Rim and it creates a market that North America would be hard pressed to fill and one that we can't overlook.
It's so important and I'm afraid it appears to be at some risk because of recent events in the United States and other negative comments that we hear from other leaders as well.
It's worth fighting for.
We need it very badly.
The worst possible scenario would be if TPP happened without Canada.
Then the status quo would not even be available to us in all of those countries, mostly in the Pacific Rim, we would be, for all intents and purposes, locked out of those markets.
In the event TPP does falter, Stewart says the Saskatchewan government will be encouraging our federal government to pursue bilateral trade agreement with countries, particularly Japan, Vietnam and so on.
Source: Farmscape