Now is Canada’s chance to become the world’s agri-food powerhouse

When Russia's army invaded Ukraine, it not only caused massive humanitarian and political tragedies, but also destabilized world food systems. Ukraine and Russia are usually in the world’s top five wheat exporters, accounting for about 25 per cent of global wheat trade. Additionally, Russia and Ukraine also contribute enormous amounts of fertilizer (especially phosphate) and their natural gas is critical to producing everything from synthetic nitrogen to the herbicide glyphosate. This year, they are unlikely to export many of these products. Compounding these supply problems are uncertain harvests in China that means the Chinese may well import huge amounts of both food and farm inputs. Global cereal stocks are at their lowest level in almost a decade, and food prices were already rising with inflation. The perfect food security storm is upon us: low supplies, trade disruptions, scarce and expensive inputs, and rising prices everywhere. The possibility of social unrest or even famine looms. Evan Fraser is director of Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph. Photograph courtesy of Evan Fraser Within the chaos is an opportunity for Canada. We have the chance to become the world’s chief agri-food powerhouse. We have abundant arable land and water, a highly trained workforce, a stable regulatory environment, and good quality infrastructure. We also have the trust of many of our trading partners as a reliable supplier of safe ingredients. To seize this opportunity, we must expand from mostly producing and exporting raw products into higher value-added food stuffs. This means we need to increase not only our rail and port facilities but also redouble our efforts in terms of food processing. Very few regions of the world boast anything like Canada’s ability to produce peas, lentils, canola, or wheat at scale. Mostly these products are not eaten in a raw form but rather processed into some higher value product. Lenore Newman is director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser River Valley. Photograph courtesy of Lenore Newman Canada must do a better job capturing this value. For example, peas produced in the Prairies must be separated into starches, proteins, and fats—each of which become valuable ingredients further down the food chain. Today, however, most of this processing happens overseas. Canada should redefine itself as an exporter of food rather than of agricultural commodities. We are already starting this journey; for example, Saskatchewan’s protein innovation supercluster has laid out a cogent roadmap that will allow our country to capture some of the exploding global market in plant-based protein. Second, we need a renewed focus on training, labour, and the creation of those highly qualified persons who will lead the sector in the future. As technologies, robotics, and advanced manufacturing reshape the nature of food and farming, we must also diversify and expand the employment opportunities with the sector, and this means training the next generation with a significantly different set of skills than previous generations of farmers and food processors needed. Along with basic soil science, agronomy, and animal husbandry, we must also focus on ensuring our students get valuable workplace-readiness opportunities, and that they are well grounded in science, technology, engineering, and math. A shortage of highly skilled young people entering the sector stands in the way of our country reaching our potential. Addressing this bottleneck requires investments in training. Third, Canada should develop agri-tech innovation zones. The same technologies that created the internet and are transforming medicine are now being applied in food and farming systems. From artificial intelligence-powered smart tractors to vertical farms that use LED lights, waste heat, and surplus nutrients to grow local food year-round, one of the most exciting frontiers of science and innovation is the application of digital tools to the food sector. But Canada lags behind places such as Singapore, the Netherlands, or Israel in being a global leader in the development of such agri-tech. Fixing this problem requires us to establish agri-tech innovation zones that will act as a catalyst for innovation and entrepreneurialism. Here, too, we are seeing the beginnings of progress. British Columbia's February announcement the government plans to create an agri-tech innovation zone in the Lower Mainland is an important first step. Geopolitics, climate change, and a host of other factors such as population growth are currently undermining the very foundations of the global food system. New technologies create unprecedented opportunities to change the nature of agriculture and food production. This represents an historic opportunity for our country to become agri-food leader in applying advanced new technologies in a way that is sustainable and creates massive economic opportunities. By investing in processing, training, and establishing agri-food technology innovation hubs, we can position Canada as an agri-food powerhouse and play a massive global leadership role for the next century. Evan Fraser is director of Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph. Lenore Newman is director of the Food and Agriculture Institute at the University of the Fraser River Valley. The Hill Times