Farmscape for January 5, 2018

Manitoba's Agriculture Minister says there is an opportunity to make an already strong relationship among  provincial and state agriculture and rural leaders even stronger.
Manitoba's Agriculture Minister is in Kansas City, Missouri today, tomorrow and Sunday, taking part in the Legislative Agriculture Chairs Summit hosted by State Agriculture and Rural Leaders.
The summit brings together elected officials from the United States, Canada and Mexico representing agricultural and rural issues to collaborate on shared priorities.
Ralph Eichler says there is a strong level of support within the group for maintaining trade.

Clip-Ralph Eichler-Agriculture Minister Manitoba:
In 2003 BSE broke out and the State Agricultural Leaders Group asked us to join their organization as Canadians and focus on trade and, more importantly back at that time, it was based on getting the border opened for our beef cattle to go back into the United States to be processed or grown or finished.
Certainly we took advantage of that opportunity so we've developed a great relationship over the past number of years.
If we look at what happened in the past in regards to BSE and Country of Origin Labelling they've been right by our side day in and day out saying, we want trade with Canada, we know it's a priority for us, we want to continue on that trade and we'll do what ever we can to assist you in order to be able to do that.
I feel our relationship is strong but it can be better and when we have issues that are important we are able to go back to our friends and supporters and say look, how can we look at this with a different lens in order to make sure we maintain our relationship that we're both going to be beneficial at short term and long term.

Eichler says he is looking forward to making new relationships and building on those we already have.
He notes next year the Legislative Agriculture Chairs Summit will be hosted by Canada in Calgary.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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