Canadian farmers need to keep pace with the adoption of new farming technologies in other food producing countries or lose ground in winning foreign markets, says Pierre Petelle, President and CEO of CropLife Canada. Canada is currently aiming to move to second place from fifth among food exporters and it has already shown it can produce more food sustainably on the same amount of land, he told the Commons agriculture committee. Other countries are pursuing innovations in agriculture through advancements in data analytics, automation, and genomics, he said. “Canada must act quickly or risk being left behind. “Canadian farmers' adoption of technology has also driven greater food production than ever before, which has spurred economic growth throughout the country,” he said. “It has also helped to ensure that Canadians pay some of the lowest food prices, and have access to one of the safest food supplies in the world. “Technologies like pest control products and biotech crops have played an important role in sustainability, increasing agricultural production in Canada while maintaining the high safety standards we have established in this country. “These advancements have resulted in economic gains, environmental protection and cost savings for consumers,” he said. “Without pesticides and biotech crops, Canadian farmers would need to cultivate 50 per cent more land than we do today. This would be devastating for Canada's biodiversity.” Without plant science technologies, Canadians would pay about 55 per cent more for food, he said. “Agriculture must continue to adopt new technologies and innovation such as pest control products and products of modern plant breeding to increase productivity.” Canada needs to maintain its strong science-based regulatory system on agriculture and food while seizing “opportunities to improve the efficiencies and streamline regulatory approaches where possible to drive greater innovation and competitiveness. “We believe that there are many opportunities when it comes to products of modern plant breeding and pesticides to modernize and streamline these approaches, to drive greater innovation while still protecting human health and the environment. “Technological advancements such as those in crop protection and plant biotech have helped create an agriculture production system that is more sustainable than it has ever been before,” he said. In addition to making sure the regulatory system isn't a roadblock to progress, other issues affecting the agriculture supply system are tax treatment of the agrifood supply companies, environmental regulations and rail transportation. “We need to fix some of these low-hanging fruit and work on the tougher ones as we move along,” he said. Canada's competitors “are making bold statements about where they want to be in this hierarchy so we need to also have those bold statements from Canada, and have the accompanying encouragement at the regulatory level, for example, to be part of that as opposed to being on the sidelines, just regulating on health and environment and letting the rest of the elected officials and certain departments focus on increasing that from fifth to second.” Canada also needs “preferential trade agreements in high potential markets with China being at the top of that list,” he said. “However, access to markets cannot be limited to just removing tariffs. We need ongoing and enhanced engagement on non-tariff barriers that countries readily utilize. One only needs to look at the issue of durum wheat into Italy to recognize a tariff removal is not always enough to secure ensured access to markets.” The regulators also need to speak up in favor of GMOs and gene edited crops to counter detractors, he said. They need “to stand behind their decisions and impacts innovation and the acceptability of how attractive Canada looks to companies that are deciding where to invest.” The developers of these technologies also need to explain and defend the science behind them, he said. “We take that role very seriously, but when we're pointing to a regulatory system that is robust and science-based and renowned around the world, we need that mandate for those regulators to have a role to play there.” Polling shows that five to 10 per cent of the public belong to “the very vocal detractor community that will never change their position,” he said. “There is also a 30 per cent to 40 per cent consistently in all of our polling that doesn't have a strong view either way on pesticides or plant breeding or plant biotechnology.” This group is very open to the information and when they receive it, “they quickly move to the somewhat support side of the equation,” he said. “It's not about swaying positions, it's about providing the facts and letting them make their own decisions.” Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.