Here, the Honourable Heath MacDonald, Canada’s Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, describes how a Team Canada approach to agriculture will help make Canada the strongest economy in the G7
With farmers around the world facing unprecedented uncertainty and instability, the need for effective and responsive agricultural policy and programs is greater than ever.
In Canada, we are grateful to have one of the most productive and diverse agriculture and food sectors on the planet, with 62 million hectares of arable land across a wide range of landscapes, coastlines, soils, and climate.
From potatoes in my home province of Prince Edward Island to livestock in Alberta, from horticulture in British Columbia to grain and oilseed producers in Saskatchewan, our hardworking farm families have helped make Canada a top-five global agri-food exporter.
This key sector drives nearly 7% of Canada’s GDP and one in nine jobs.
Canadian agricultural policy and programming
To help foster collaboration and strategic growth in the industry, at the turn of the millennium, federal, provincial, and territorial governments in Canada sat down to develop a five-year national framework for agricultural policy and programming, in consultation with industry. Developing a national policy on agriculture requires agreement from 14 different governments and extensive inputs from the many different industry sectors, often with competing interests.
Today, we are in the middle of our fifth framework – the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (‘Sustainable-CAP’), a federal-provincial-territorial initiative which runs through to March 31, 2028.
Sustainable-CAP allocates CAD $ 3.5 billion over five years in federal, provincial, and territorial funding for flexible strategic initiatives to anticipate, mitigate, and respond to risks, promote science and innovation, support sustainable agriculture and economic growth, and tackle climate change and its impacts.
Trade and market development
Trade and market development is a major component of Sustainable-CAP and a lifeline to our farmers and food processors, who export about half of their total production by value.
As tariffs and other trade barriers around the world threaten our rules-based global trading system, I have made it a priority to diversify our customer base, leading industry trade missions to key target markets for our sector.
This past summer, early in my mandate, I led a trade mission to the Indo-Pacific region, which accounts for almost a quarter of Canada’s total agriculture, food and seafood exports. To promote Canadian agri-food trade in this high-growth market, the Government of Canada has launched our Indo-Pacific Agriculture and Agri-Food Office, based in the Philippines.
I also visited China and Mexico, two of our main trading partners, to promote our products, deepen our partnerships and advance market access files of priority for Canadian agricultural and agri-food.
Right now, the United States is still our largest trading partner, accounting for 70% of Canadian exports. In our latest federal budget, Prime Minister Mark Carney and our Government committed to deepening Canada’s trade relationships with reliable partners beyond the United States, with a goal of doubling non-U.S. exports over a decade, generating CAD $300 billion more in trade.
Looking ahead: Canada’s agriculture and food sector
For Canada’s agriculture and food sector, Budget 2025 includes a five-year investment of CAD $75 million in our AgriMarketing program, to help our agriculture, food, and seafood exporters increase and diversify their sales to global markets and seize market opportunities through promotional activities by leveraging Canada’s brand for high-quality and safe food.
As we pass the mid-point of Sustainable-CAP, we are beginning consultations to shape a new five-year framework to launch on April 1, 2028. Together, with governments and the sector, we will design a roadmap that will take Canada’s agriculture and food sector into the future, overcoming challenges and capturing new opportunities to advance this constantly changing industry.
And I have no doubt we will succeed. While we all bring our own views and local priorities to the table, at the end of the day, we all care deeply about the sector and want to see it succeed. It’s a collaborative endeavour that I believe is a model for the world.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has challenged us to make Canada the strongest economy in the G7 – and I am confident that with our powerful Team Canada strategy, Canada’s agriculture and food sector will help us get there.
