Farmscape for July 27, 2017

The Canadian Meat Council says, despite unresolved technical issues that could delay full access for Canadian beef and pork to Europe, the implementation of CETA offers tremendous potential for Canada's red meat sector.
September 21 has been set as the implementation date for the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement involving Canada and the European Union.
Ron Davidson, the Director of International Trade, Government and Media Relations with Canadian Meat Council, says two key technical barriers, health mark labelling and antimicrobial intervention, will delay commercially viable access to Europe for Canadian beef and pork but overall the agreement is good news for Canada's red meat exporters.

Clip-Ron Davidson-Canadian Meat Council:
When the CETA was being negotiated we estimated that the European Union could be a market valued at up to one billion.
That's not a prediction that our exports would reach a billion but, if we were able to fill the quotas with high value cuts, which is our expectation, and if the market conditions were right vis a vis currency exchange rates and world market conditions we estimated up to a billion dollars could be opened up to the Canadian meat industry.
When we entered the negotiations we were hoping for tariff free, quota free, tariff barrier free trade in meat products.
The CETA didn't achieve that but we certainly hope, within the not too distant future, to be able to take advantage of the potential opportunities that CETA does contain.

Davidson is confident there is potential to resolve the health mark labelling issue prior to the September 21 implementation date but he anticipates the antimicrobial intervention issue will take additional time to resolve.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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