Farmscape for March 5, 2018

The Chair of the Canadian Pork Council says a pork sector delegation visiting Japan will have the opportunity to build on relationships that has been decades in the making.
Representatives of the Canadian pork sector, accompanied by Federal Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay, are in Japan this week to celebrate Canadian and Japanese relations under the new Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Rick Bergmann, the Chair of the Canadian Pork Council, says the goal of the visit is to allow those who are buying Canadian pork to meet with those who are producing it.

Clip-Rick Bergmann-Canadian Pork Council:
It'll be a learning time for all of us but it'll also be a relationship building effort that we'll be successful at.
People want to buy from people so it's a great opportunity for us to meet with our customers and for our friends in Japan that we'll be meeting, and specifically in Tokyo, they'll have an opportunity of meeting the people who are producing the pork that they're consuming so it's a very significant relationship building exercise but it's a celebration trip because it's a testament of the many decades of efforts being put forth over the past.
We're really enjoying some of the successes of that but we also want to build on that for the future as well.
We're delighted to be part of this mission and we're pleased to meet our ag minister there spend time with him and, from all of that, we know that there's going to be more big things coming.

Bergmann says there have been trade agreements signed in the past where, because Canada was late to the table, opportunities where lost but, in the case of the Comprehensive Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, Canada is among the first to the table and will be in a very good competitive position compared to other countries.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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