Farmscape for March 2, 2018

The Canadian Meat Council says allocations outlined in the 2018 federal budget show the Government of Canada is committed to expanded international trade.
The 2018 budget, tabled Tuesday, includes a 75 million dollar commitment over the next five years to increase the number of Diplomats and Trade Commissioners in China and Asia and 16 million over the next three years to strengthen food safety systems.
On the issue of trade, Canadian Meat Council Communications Manager Marcus Mattinson says increasing the number of diplomats and trade commissioners is an encouraging sign that the government is serious about expanding trade.

Clip-Marcus Mattinson-Canadian Meat Council:
We think this is an excellent opportunity to resolve some uncertainty we saw at the end of last year with regards to various red product trade with China.
We see this as an encouraging sign that the federal government is serious at expanding this market for Canadian producers.
Just recently Canada's signature of CPTPP was announced, which will be done next week.
We're very much committed to seeing the CPTPP go through.
That's obviously a great market that we are looking forward to accessing but we're also very encouraged that the government seems to be taking the possibility of increased trade with China more seriously and they're willing to increase the number of Diplomats and Trade Commissioners in this region, which is a good sign for us.
It's certainly a market that the red meat industry can do very well in and we look forward to working with our government counterparts.

Mattinson notes the federal government has set a very ambitious goal of increasing agri-food exports by 75 billion dollars.
He says allocations in this budget show the government is ready to support not only the red meat industry but many other industries who want to emerge into these Pacific markets.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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