Farmscape for November 13, 2024

A professor with Dalhousie University suggests Canada will need to work with the United States under the new Donald Trump administration to ensure benefits to Canadian agriculture.
“Navigating the Maze: Agri-Food Trends and their Impact on the Pork Industry” was among the topics discussed last week in Saskatoon as part of Saskatchewan pork Industry Symposium 2024.
Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, a professor with Dalhousie University, says Canada followed the United States in terms of food inflation but Canada is now higher, the result of Canada's own food policies.

Quote-Dr. Sylvain Charlebois-Dalhousie University:
Dairy, meat are pushing food inflation higher and they're all pretty domestic.
That's why, during my talk I really focused a lot on the concept of competitiveness, because I don't think that right now that we're helping agriculture.
We're just making agriculture more expensive so farmers are struggling.
Right now, things are good for the pork industry but they're not going to remain the same so we've got to be ready for that and, with America becoming even more competitive under a Trump regime, we're going to have to follow.
I know there's a lot of rhetoric around tariffs and things like that.
I don't pay a whole lot of attention to that.
I think what's most important is the fact that we do have an American administration looking at deals, looking for deals.
Donald Trump is very transactional.
He's very predictable and so I think we need to capitalize on that as much as possible.
But I do think that the world is likely going to get more interesting as a result of what we're seeing in Washington and that's going to probably benefit Canada over time.
But we've got to be in lock step with the Americans.
We can't just be at odds with them.
We're at odds with India, with China.
The last thing we want is to be at odds with the Americans.

To access Dr. Charlebois's work google "Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University."
He notes all of the reports are available in both French and English at no charge.
For more visit Farmscape.Ca.
Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is produced on behalf of North America’s pork producers