Farmscape for October 28, 2016

The Canadian Meat Council says government policies play a key role in influencing the global competitiveness of Canada's red meat industry.
Last week representatives of the Canadian Meat Council appeared before the House of Commons Committee on Industry, Science and Technology to discuss competiveness in "Manufacturing."
The committee is assessing the government's role in encouraging industry to provide more jobs and economic growth.
Ron Davidson, the Director for International Trade, Government and Media Relations with the Canadian Meat Council, observes the beef sector receives about 50 percent of its income and the pork industry about 70 percent from exports.

Clip-Ron Davidson-Canadian Meat Council:
Not only are we export dependant, we have to be competitive in the export markets and in our domestic market.
Pork can enter Canada duty free, quota free from anywhere in the world provided they satisfy the food safety requirements so, with consumers who are very price sensitive, we have to be competitive, competitive abroad and competitive in Canada.
The other important thing about the meat industry to note is that it's the most heavily regulated and inspected part of the food sector.
The government inspectors are in all of our plants.
We aren't able to operate our plants unless their inspectors are in them.
In addition to that, the mandate for negotiating access to foreign markets is a government mandate.
Industry can not go out and negotiate with foreign governments what the access will be.
We have to work very closely with our government and it has to be mutually supportive, not only in ensuring that we meet the world standards for food safety or exceed them, which we do, but also in negotiating those access conditions for the foreign  markets.

Davidson notes, as examples, Canadian meat processors are required to contribute to the costs of meat inspection and foreign audits of meat plants where as in the U.S. those costs are covered entirely by government and Canadian regulations pertaining to cooling and chilling of product are much more stringent than those in the European Union.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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