Canadian agriculture could see heavy effects from possible US tariffs

With the possibility of tariffs coming onto Canada following the American election, Canadian farm groups are preparing for what might be rougher economic conditions.

The potential 25 per cent tariffs would have a major impact on most food items which see a good amount shipped south of the border.

Cam Dahl, general manager of Manitoba Pork Producers says they're already starting behind when it comes to trade relations with the US.

"In fact, this wasn't the starting point for protectionist concerns in the United States. So protectionism and America-first policies have been rising for some time in the United States, and that is something that is absolutely of growing concern. In some ways it is almost doesn't matter who won on November 5th because, for example, Vice President Harris was one of the 10 Senators that voted against the Canada, US Mexico Trade Agreement."

"So we've seen rising protectionism for some time and really are looking to governments, especially the government of Canada to respond to those and unfortunately we haven't seen the response we have needed for some time and I'll give you a couple of examples. One is country of origin labelling, that was something that has been put in place by the current administration and really it's going to discriminate against Canadian live pigs that are exported to the United States, Manitoba alone exports more than 3,000,000 live pigs into the US every year and so we're seeing measures in the US that are going to impact the price that farmers receive for those. 

Dahl says that the province would likely see a wider recession if those tariffs come into effect, with $2,3 billion in pork and 22,000 provincial jobs potentially on the line.

"I think the impacts would be very significant when you consider both live animals as well as pork exports. The United States is our largest market and 90 per cent of the 8 million pigs that we raise every year are exported, so it would be a significant impact if we were to lose the US market for pork and live animal exports."

In terms of a response, Dahl says that any moves that Canada makes will need to be planned out.

"When we're looking at you know, up to 40% of our export markets go to the United States, that's not something that can be quickly replaced. I do think that we need to have a strategic plan for agriculture and food trade that includes pork, but it goes across all of agriculture and we need to have a plan to address those rising protectionist issues that are already in place, like country of origin labeling."

"We need to have a plan to really reach out to our partners across the United States in individual states like Iowa, for example, that import more than two million pigs from Manitoba every year as well as senators and representatives in Washington, DC. So we need to have an outreach plan that covers all of agriculture and then we need to have a strategic plan for the renegotiation of our most important trade agreement, the Canada, US, and Mexico trade agreement."

Dahl says that so far he hasn't seen the work put in by the federal government and hopes to see a better plan in the future.

"I think just that really to stress that we need to have a strategic approach to trade. The world is becoming more protectionist. We are an export-dependent province and an export-dependent country and you know instead of being reactionary, we need to have a strategic forward-looking approach in place."