Ottawa-Canada needs to boost its domestic production of fruits and vegetables to reduce its dependence on imports that could be disrupted by trade disputes, says Al Mussell, a Senior Research Fellow with the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI).

The international rules-based trade environment is eroding and it would be a prudent strategy for Canada to reduce its dependence on imports by encouraging increased domestic production, Mussell told the Commons agriculture committee.

“Canada has played an active role in attempts to revitalize the World Trade Organization and rules-based trade and this should continue,” he said. It should also explore what is needed for expanded horticultural production in Canada.

CAPI-supported research “has found that Canada is dependent on imports for about 80 per cent of its fruits and 60 per cent of its vegetables and the dependence on imports exceeds this in some provinces and territories.”

Even with that dependence, “Horticulture is an essential element of Canadian agriculture and secure access to nutritious food. It's an important source for food manufacturing and the basis of Canadian export-oriented industries.

“Horticultural products have ranged around 12 per cent of total farm cash receipts, recently valued at just under $11.5 billion. “Exports of fruit and vegetables were recently valued at about $125 million. Flowers and ornamental exports were valued at almost $225 million.”

While Canada's northern climate has limited the output and extent of horticulture, data from recent decades shows that much of the country is warming and receiving more precipitation allowing for increased crop yields and the movement of new crops into areas where the climate was previously unsuitable.

The result is “a prospect for growth in horticultural crops in Canada. New developments in controlled environment agriculture and/or vertical farming provide some call for optimism for Canada's ability to supply fruits and vegetables locally, including in northern regions of the country.”

Although warmer and wetter weather aid plant growth, they also promote crop diseases and pests including some that are new to Canada and require an effective means for control, Mussell said. “Canada will require research to support controls, enable or generate access to new crop varieties because of climate change, and the ability to expedite registrations to make these products available to growers.”

Increased production will require plans for an expanded workforce, including temporary workers called upon to work a longer season. It will also create multiple challenges for crop insurance, which is heavily relied upon by horticultural industries to underpin investments.

“We have to make prudent use of fertilizer and pesticides. This is to be taken as a serious matter, but we can't simply do without. I would direct you to some of the research done at the University of Manitoba, in which they found that globally, 40 per cent of the adequate diet based on protein can be directly mapped back through to the Haber-Bosch process that produces artificial nitrogen.”

Expanding agriculture production can only help increase carbon sequestration, he said. As agriculture is “one of only a few industries that are capable of sequestering carbon, we look at that as an option and look at what options there are to provide incentives for that.

Improving a6rgiculture’s resilience to climate change “is about adaptation and how we prepare the sector for what it may need to contend with. I think a pretty aggressive research and development agenda would pursue that type of resilience around adaptation and look for opportunities for mitigation within that.”

This news item was prepared for National Newswatch