Agriculture and Agri-food Canada (AAFC) has posted its Agriculture 2020: Challenges and Opportunities Phase 1 Engagement Discussion Document on their website for comments. AAFC's current priorities include support for a sector that proactively manages risk, is environmentally sustainable, innovative, and maintains its' competitiveness. They are starting this dialogue to develop the next agricultural policy framework, the successor to Growing Forward, which ends on March 31, 2013.
The Canadian Agri-food sector's profitability is affected by a host of factors that affect our economy such as exchange rates and evolving consumer preferences, to issues unique to agricultural production such as weather, pests and disease.
Canadian Agri-industry is still driven by innovation through investments in research and development, adoption of new technologies and business practices, and growing new crops with increased yields, improved drought tolerance and superior nutritional attributes. Growth in this sector is attributed to value-added products such as functional foods with beneficial bioactive components, nutraceuticals, and starch-based polymers and blends for new-generation bio-plastics and products that could help reduce reliance on petroleum-based products. Maintaining market access and protecting/exploiting our proprietary knowledge base will become more important as world populations expand faster than available domestic resources can supply, especially in China and India.
Industry will need to work and participate in a leadership role.
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