Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald said he sees “lots of opportunities” under new trade agreements signed with Beijing for Chinese investment in areas such as domestic value-added processing – facilities that transform raw ingredients into marketable products – and in Canadian agricultural research.
“They want our expertise and we have expertise in agriculture,” he said in interview with the Globe and Mail. “I think they have a keen interest.”
He made a trip with Prime Minister Mark Carney to China and it resulted in significant cuts to a number of tariffs on agricultural products, such as canola, and agreements between the two countries on food safety standards and investment in energy and food production.
Agriculture has long struggled to secure the capital required to transform Canada into the food juggernaut it could be, said Evan Fraser, director of the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph.
“Canada is likely to become the most important breadbasket in the world over the next few years,” he said, noting the effects of climate change and rising aridity in other more southern agricultural competitors.
“This will either put a target on our back – as some nations pursue empire – or we will form coalitions that situate Canada between China, the EU and the US ... if we don’t seize the moment, the moment will seize us.”
