“We share, as a sector, all the same attributes as the rest of the farming sectors from genetics to raising animals in pens and dealing with animal welfare issues and animal health issues,” said Tim Kennedy, president and chief executive officer of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance.

WHY IT MATTERS: The aquaculture industry says demand is there for Canadian seafood but without sufficient support, its seeing more imported product moving into grocery stores.

The Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance and seven provincial aquaculture organizations wrote a letter to the federal, provincial and territorial governments. They called on them to use Canada’s Next Policy Framework for Agriculture to help their sector grow — and to class the industry under Agriculture Agri-Food Canada (AAFC).

“Our lead department has been the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is a habitat protection and fisheries management department. They deal with the wild capture sector,” Kennedy said.

Aquaculture is the farming of fish and seafood.

Aquaculture as agriculture for growth

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans isn’t growth oriented. AAFC is, Kennedy said.

“We have flat lined in Canadian production for aquaculture for 20 years, and we have the largest coastline in the world.”

The Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance has been asking to be classed under AAFC for the past ten years. The aquaculture industry could then be classed as agricultural and reap some of the same benefits as agricultural industries. For example, aquaculture farmers would have access to the AgriInnovate program.

The aquaculture sector would also like a collaborative insurance program for shellfish farmers and freshwater producers.

Aquaculture is a $5 billion sector in terms of economic activity — the equivalent of 1.4 per cent of farm gate sales in Canada.

“In terms of a relative comparison to the rest of the ag sector, that’s small,” said Kennedy. “One thing people should know is we’ve only been around as a commercial sector for 45 years. We’re young. Salmon production started 50 years ago.”

The Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance has about 65 members. Members include people who raise fish such as salmon, rainbow trout, Artic char, mussels and oysters.

Aquaculture farmers also grow a small amount of seaweed, which is largely used for animal feed.

Atlantic salmon farming biggest growth area

Atlantic salmon make up 80 per cent of the aquaculture sector. They’re farmed in British Columbia, New Brunswick, and the other Atlantic provinces. There is some rainbow trout production in Ontario and on the Prairies.

“Atlantic salmon is the most popular seafood product in North America and increasingly in Europe and around the world,” Kennedy said. “It’s like the rest of the farming sector, when you have an animal, a breed that is particularly good for production, like Holsteins or Herefords. Atlantic salmon are good to raise as farmed animals.”

Atlantic salmon are easy to raise in pens, unlike Pacific salmon, which are much harder to farm.

The demand for seafood is there, especially for salmon.

“I think because of the lack of overall support for the aquaculture sector, we’ve seen some declines,” Kennedy said.

There have also been some government-mandated shutdowns in British Columbia.

In 2024, the federal government announced it would ban open net-pen salmon farming by June 2029 and would require farms to transition to closed containment or other aquaculture systems.

“What we’re seeing is more product coming from other countries, especially Chile, into Canadian grocery stores. Canadians can’t buy the Canadian salmon they want to buy. This has been a real problem,” Kennedy said.

A deeper partnership between Agriculture and Agri-food Canada and aquaculture would produce a lot more salmon in Canada, for Canadians.

“I’d say globally as well. Aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector in the world. There is an increasing demand for high quality animal protein. We’re low carbon footprint. We’re a very efficient product,” he said. “For instance, in the salmon sector, we’re basically about one kilogram of feed is producing 1 kilogram of fish.”

Benefits for the rest of the farming sector

In the letter, the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance and the seven provincial groups highlighted value-added opportunities for the rest of the farm sector. When the sector first started, a lot of the fish was fed entirely marine based products. Now the Canadian sector only uses about 20 per cent marine based ingredients. About 80 per cent of the ingredients are from land-based farms.

The aquaculture sector is using oils, grains and ingredients like chicken offal, that would otherwise be put in waste products.

“If we can increase production, we’re going to increase the value add in Canada for other farmers,” said Kennedy.

The Next Policy Framework will be completed by 2028. Earlier this year, the federal government it was starting consultations across the country.

The next federal, provincial, territorial meeting will be held in Halifax in July. Kennedy said the areas of focus and decisions of what sectors are included under the Department of Agriculture and Agri-food could be announced by then.

“We’re still a couple of years away, but now is the time for all of the considerations and planning,” he said. “This is a very important time for us.”

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Farment BioSolutions Ltd. is one of eight agriculture-focused technology companies included on the 2022 Foresight 50 list. The list is compiled annually by Canadian cleantech accelerator Foresight and is designed to attract investor attention to made-in-Canada innovations from industrial wastewater treatment to climate positive fertilizers and more.

Why it matters: Recent events have shown that Canada needs homegrown fertilizer solutions to minimize instability caused by the global supply chain and help the country meet voluntary fertilizer emissions reduction targets.

Farment uses a combination of naturally occurring bacteria with nitrogen-fixing capabilities and fermentation to make farm-based nutrients, like manure, more efficient.

“We take organic wastes in different forms and by fermentation turn them into a biofertilizer. We work with dairy farms and feedlots in B.C. and Alberta currently, but there are many different organic waste problems in need of a solution, like municipal wastes for example,” said Ryan Klatt, who leads partnerships and strategy at Farment.

In addition to working with livestock farms, the company has been looking at ways it can help fish and insect farms deal with their organic waste streams like sludge in the bottom of fish tanks and frass, the manure produced by insects.

According to Klatt, Farment has done some initial testing with fish water waste from a tilapia farm in British Columbia, processing it through its proprietary fermentation process and then evaluating its quality.

“By running the waste through there, our tests showed we increased the fertilizer quality,” he said, adding that they’re now looking for partners to help them further develop this new application for the technology.

The announcement of the Fertilizer Accelerating Solutions & Technology Challenge by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and Bioenterprise Canada last September brought Farment to Ontario, where they connected with the Centre for Innovative Aquaculture Production (CIAP) at Fleming College’s Frost Campus in Lindsay.

Together, they’re hoping to undertake a project to validate the initial tilapia results with rainbow trout operations in Ontario if they are approved for funding under the program. If the project is successful, the long-term goal is to create circular economy opportunities for the aquaculture industry that would also benefit farmers, said Ryan Hill, a research scientist at CIAP.

“Currently, fish waste is composted, so getting rid of it represents a cost to aquaculture businesses,” he said. “Our long-term goal is not just to provide a better fertilizer that is rich in nitrogen, but we want to close the loop where we grow fish, and create a better fertilizer for land-based crops that provide feed for those fish. This would create a local supply chain.”

Last year marked the first release of the Foresight 50 list, and companies named on the list went on to collectively raise almost $600 million in investment into their various cleantech solutions. Other agri-food focused companies that were selected for the 2022 list include:

• Hempalta of Alberta, which focuses on innovative hemp processing and product creation.
• Livestock Water Recycling, also of Alberta, which provides high-tech digital manure processing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, concentrate and segregate nutrients for strategic fertilizer application, and recycle clean and reusable water.
• B.C.-based Lucent Biosciences, developer of a smart micro-nutrient fertilizer called Soileos.
• Psigryph Inc. from Guelph that develops food tech for health, redefining how molecules with health benefits enter cells to improve plant and animal nutrition.
• Takachar of B.C. that turns crop and forest residue into higher value chemicals, biofuels and fertilizers in remote communities.
• Manitoba’s TheoryMesh that is building traceable and transparent food supply chains for sustainability and food safety.
• Verdi from B.C., builder of a platform that lets growers build, manage and scale precision agriculture systems to deliver plant-level healthcare.

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Why it matters: The global shrimp market is estimated to grow up to US$74 billion by 2028, and land-based shrimp production could be an alternative use for existing livestock buildings.

An innovative land-based shrimp operation in northern Germany has addressed most of those challenges by co-locating at the most unlikely of places: a sewage treatment plant at the town of Strande near the northern German city of Kiel.

In 2015, that’s where Foerde Garnelen began producing the Pacific White or White Tiger shrimp it ships fresh to consumers, retailers, restaurants and hotels across Germany within 24 hours of harvest.

“Land-based production gives better access to farming sites than offshore sites and we can locate close to our markets and control water quality and nutrients,” said Managing Director Bert Wecker during a tour of the facility this past summer.

“We also have much more potential to use the (shrimp) waste. It’s a circular economy; this is the long-term future.”

Waste heat from the sewage treatment facility’s biogas production is a free energy source, making it cost-effective to keep the water at a steady 30 C year-round. As well, the location on the Kiel Fjord, a 17-kilometre long inlet of the Baltic Sea, allows the company to use natural sea water for its production. This normally isn’t permitted, but regulatory approvals were already in place because the site is also home to a former aquaculture research station.

Incoming sea water is naturally filtered through a wetland of salt-tolerant plants like Salicornia. Wastewater runs through the sewage treatment plant before it is discharged into the sea and filtered waste particles are used for worm culture.

Foerde Garnelen has developed a system of what he calls underwater skyscrapers – adapted from Norway’s halibut farming industry – to increase production inside the production tanks and take advantage of shrimp’s natural behaviours.

Blue light in the production facility keeps the shrimp active, leading to less competition, stress and mortality, and a camera system monitors stocking density and length.

“Shrimp is a cannibal and a bottom dweller, so it needs surface area. We have developed layers in the tank so we can produce in 3D in one big basin with the habitat inside,” Wecker said. “Our target is life tracking of biomass growth so we can do efficient feeding. If the shrimp eat each other, it’s hard to calculate. We are the first to do this and have increased our survival rate.”

A change in feed has also contributed to lower shrimp mortality. Lack of cost-effective access to European Union-approved shrimp feed, combined with health problems traced to nutrition, led the company to develop its own specialty rations.

According to Wecker, Foerde Garnelen is the first producer in Europe to feed insect protein, and although they’re still tweaking the recipe, they’ve been able to double the survival rate of their shrimp.

Hatchlings come from hatcheries in Austria and Germany, but there are plans to add an in-house hatchery during an expansion, although this is temporarily on hold due to high construction costs.

Foerde Garnelen is a registered brand in Germany that prides itself on shipping its product fresh. Advances in freezing technology using brine are now making it possible to quick freeze shrimp in as little as five seconds with no quality loss. Shrimp are harvested on demand at 25 to 30 grams or approximately five to six months of age.

“We run almost everything by cell phone – the alerts to problems are automatic but the solutions are not,” Wecker says. “Shrimp are the next big thing in aquaculture so I’m optimistic about the future.”

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A focus on nourishment gives scope to look beyond staple foods by considering the diversity of people and the benefits they derive from food, said Dr. Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted, WildFish’s global lead for nutrition and public health, during the recent Arrell Food Summit. 

“When I started (my research), this was very different, because … many people start with production, and they start with the inputs to production,” she said. “I think the difference starts with a people-centred approach.” 

Why it matters: An expert says that aquatic foods should need to be prioritized in food and nutrition systems around the globe. 

Thilsted said that consideration of who eats food, who produces it and who gets it onto the table provides unique entry points into the food system. 

“It gives us the opportunity to get the best benefits, and all the benefits, across many sectors from using the word nourishing rather than just feeding,” she said. “And when we begin with nourishing, again, it’s very important that we start with the people that we want to nourish – with our focus on women and young children in the first 1,000 days of life.”

Using her agriculture, nutrition and physiology background, Thilsted concentrated on the women and children in the communities she studied, listening to their issues, challenges and solutions. 

“In Bangladesh, I zoned in on small fish because when you talk to women, they will tell you, ‘when the rains come, and we eat small fish, we see better,” she said. “I can link that to small fish having high quantities of vitamin A.” 

It’s easier to craft solutions when armed with direct insight, especially when solutions are co-created by people at all levels of the food system, starting with government policymakers. 

Working with common fish species in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Denmark and other countries, Thilsted looked at the multi-nutritional benefits found in smaller fish. 

“To my surprise, they are what you would call superfoods because they contain many minerals, essential minerals — calcium, iron, zinc to name a few and vitamin B 12, which is so very important for cognition.”

Thilsted focused on using pond polyculture in the four million Bangladeshi household ponds to increase small and large fish productivity and nutritional quality.

“If you give the knowledge to the parents, they will use it to feed their children, to find ways to feed their children the superfoods so they can benefit from them,” she said, adding that providing nutrition information is critical.

Thilsted’s insights and innovations in holistic, nutrition-sensitive approaches to aquatic food systems steered conversations toward improving health and nutrition, said Dr. Rashid Sumaila, a University of British Columbia professor.

“Most of us are talking about food quantities and food security,” said Sumaila. “(She is) renowned for developing nutrition-sensitive approaches to aquatic food systems that successfully improved the nutrition and health of millions of women and children.” 

Thilsted’s message insists that the system apply to low- and middle-income countries, particularly Asia, Africa and the Pacific, said Sumaila. 

At the UN 2021 Food Systems Summit, the scientific group recognized aquatic foods as one of the seven solutions put forward. 

Blue Food Assessment research indicates that, with sustainable management of aquatic food, it’s possible to produce six times more food than is produced today. It is an accessible source of superfoods saturated with micronutrients and essential fatty acids. 

Aquatic food must be central to the global development agenda concerning investment in research and innovation, said Thilsted. 

However, a holistic perspective that encompasses the diverse range of food ensures it is also culturally acceptable. 

Thilsted said the world had witnessed the cost of modern-day starvation because, despite the quantity of food produced, traded and exported, it is assessed on its monetary value rather than its ability to nourish. 

“I think we are better than that, as researchers, as policymakers, the private sector – we are better than that,” she said. “We can both give the sufficient quantity, but we can do that with diverse nutritious foods, not just the staple food. Not just maize in Africa or rice in Asia. We can do better.” 

If African and Asian diets were analyzed and assessed as thoroughly as the Mediterranean diet, one could draw similarities, Thilsted said. For example, the Bangladeshi plate has rice, vegetables, pulses, small fish, green chilli and lemon slices. She believes it would match the Mediterranean plate’s nourishment value. 

“We’ve just scratched the surface of what we can do and how we can prioritize aquatic foods in food and nutrition systems, in the policies, the investments, the research,” said Thilsted. 

“With this recognition, I do hope that we will be able to elevate the role of aquatic foods in food systems and with these superfoods, we will be able to nourish people better.”

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Greg Morrow, the new MLA for Guysborough-Tracadie, was sworn in Tuesday along with the other members of Houston’s 19-member cabinet.

Houston’s Tories ousted Iain Rankin’s Liberal government in the Aug. 17 provincial election, scoring a majority with 31 of 55 seats, followed by the Liberals with 17, New Democrats with six and one former Tory returning as an independent.

For his part, Morrow unseated incumbent Liberal MLA and transportation minister Lloyd Hines in Guysborough-Tracadie by a spread of 1,710 votes.

Morrow, who lives at Tracadie, until now has been news director for 101.5 The Hawk, an FM station at nearby Port Hawkesbury on Cape Breton Island.

Where the previous ag minister, the Liberals’ Keith Colwell, had responsibility for fisheries and aquaculture also, Houston has separated those duties, assigning the fisheries and aquaculture file to Steve Craig, the Tory MLA for Sackville-Cobequid since 2019.

Retired vegetable and hort crop grower John Lohr, the returning MLA for Kings North and the Tories’ incumbent agriculture critic, was named Tuesday as minister for municipal affairs and housing, also with responsibility for the Emergency Management Office and military relations.

Another former Tory ag critic, returning Cumberland South MLA Tory Rushton, was named Tuesday as minister for natural resources and renewables, combining two former departments: Lands and Forestry, and Energy and Mines.

“This team will be focused on taking action on the things Nova Scotians have clearly told us are important to them,” Houston said Tuesday in a release.

Morrow, during his nomination in June, said Houston “is a leader who does more than criticize the government. He has offered common-sense ideas about what should be done every step of the way, and I’m excited to help bring those plans forward.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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As of 9 p.m. CT Monday, incumbent Premier Blaine Higgs’ Progressive Conservatives, who went into the vote with a 22-seat minority government, were elected in 27 of 49 ridings.

The provincial Liberals, who briefly held a minority government after the last provincial election in 2018, were elected in 17 seats as of Monday night. The provincial Greens and People’s Alliance captured three and two seats respectively.

Ross Wetmore, who’s been Higgs’ minister for agriculture, aquaculture and fisheries since November 2018, easily held his riding of Gagetown-Petitcodiac, coming in ahead of People’s Alliance candidate Craig Dykeman by a spread of 3,470 votes.

Isabelle Theriault, the Liberals’ incumbent critic (or “policy advocate,” as the party describes the critic role) for agriculture and aquaculture, held her northeastern riding of Caraquet by a spread of 4,638 votes over the Greens’ Marie-Christine Hache.

Andrew Harvey, the Liberals’ ag minister before the party was knocked out of government by a non-confidence motion in November 2018, finished second Monday night in his western riding of Carleton-Victoria, 391 votes behind Tory challenger Margaret Johnson.

Wetmore, a businessman best known as co-owner of Gagetown-based K+W Quality Meats and the Gagetown Marina, came to the legislature in 2010 as the MLA for the riding then known as Grand Lake-Gagetown. He was re-elected in 2014 and again in 2018.

For some farm groups such as the Agricultural Alliance of New Brunswick, Monday’s election took on added significance as the Liberals, Greens and People’s Alliance went public in favour of new restrictions on the use of glyphosate herbicide.

The Liberals said in late August a Liberal government would phase in a ban on glyphosate use on Crown land over four years. The Greens’ platform called for a ban on glyphosate spraying in Crown forests.

“Farmers across the province are increasingly concerned that potential decisions, like this one, are being made in haste and are creating an environment of unpredictability that reduces growth and investments in our sector,” the AANB said in a statement Sept. 2. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The company will invest some $400 million in the next two to three years at its 13 plants to make high-protein, corn-based animal feeds its new flagship product, relegating ethanol to a low-margin byproduct (all figures US$).

The plan upends the company’s years-long strategy of pumping out the fuel and selling off the remnants as distillers dried grains (DDGS) for cows and pigs.

“We will start to transform, with ethanol as a co- or byproduct,” Green Plains CEO Todd Becker said in a recent interview. “We think that is the only way to thrive long term in an industry like this.”

The strategy reflects a devastating ethanol market outlook as U.S. demand for motor fuels is projected to fall and the Trump administration waives biofuel blending requirements for more and more oil refiners.

But demand for high-protein animal feed remains strong. A large U.S. cattle and near-record hog herd are gobbling up feeds. And global demand for meat is surging as the deadly African swine fever culls herds in China, Southeast Asia and parts of Europe.

“We believe this will be our main commodity, main revenue stream and main profit stream,” Becker said. “The ethanol today is an industry that is oversupplied and undisciplined.”

Green Plains’ ethanol revenue fell 19.8 per cent to $1.701 billion in 2019, its annual report released on Monday showed, the lowest since 2010. It will hold a call to discuss the report on Tuesday.

Green Plains will start production of its new feed in February at a plant in Shenandoah, Iowa, following a $35 million investment.

The feed produced there will contain 50 per cent protein, allowing it to charge a premium to the ethanol industry’s typical DDGS with around 30 per cent protein. The new feed, targeted at aquaculture producers and pet food companies, contains even more protein than soymeal.

Soymeal sells for about double the price of DDGs, according to the U.S. Grains Council.

Green Plains, which partnered with Novozymes A/S to boost the protein content of the feed through enzymes and microbial technologies, has already formed a joint venture with Optimal Fish Food to produce their aquaculture feed.

The feed, which could run as high as 60 per cent protein content in the coming years, is insulated from the political headwinds that have devastated the ethanol market, Becker said.

— Mark Weinraub is a Reuters commodities correspondent in Chicago.

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Protein Industries Canada (PIC), set up last year as one of five federally-backed research and innovation superclusters, announced Wednesday it will put $4 million over two years toward a project to commercialize a new plant protein processing technology.

Led by Calgary-based Botaneco Inc., working with the Canadian arm of crop chemical and seed firm Corteva and Alberta organic hemp producer Rowland Farms, the project will also leverage another $4 million from industry, PIC said in a release.

PIC, billed as a “pan-Prairie” industry-led alliance of over 120 private-sector companies, schools and other stakeholders across the West and elsewhere, was set up with a focus on “fully developing the potential of plant-based proteins from crops such as canola, pulses, grains, hemp and flax.”

PIC and the four other superclusters were chosen last year to split a five-year, $950 million funding commitment from Ottawa’s Innovation Superclusters Program. PIC’s agreed-upon slice of the federal investment pie is almost $153 million.

“This is an exciting day for Protein Industries Canada as we make our first project investment,” PIC’s CEO Bill Greuel said in its release. “This represents a significant milestone as a supercluster, and we are thrilled to have worked with the consortium and co-invest into a project that will drive innovative processing and bring new opportunities for feed and food manufacturers.”

PIC said the project it’s funding “has the potential to open new markets for new canola and hemp products which are functional, natural and clean-label” including high-protein canola-based concentrates for food uses as well as livestock and aquaculture feeds.

Bringing higher-value products to market “will contribute to a more robust processing sector, while creating jobs in manufacturing, food science applications and commercial leadership.”

Botaneco was set up in 2014 to commercialize an oilseed processing technology platform billed as “bringing a novel approach to producing new lipid and protein products which will sell for higher values.”

Products coming out of Botaneco so far have been mostly safflower-based and mainly for the personal care sector, including Hydresia oleosomes for skin care; CapSol, for sun protection; and Karmyn proteins for use in hair and skin care products and cleansers.

Botaneco’s CEO James Szarko said Wednesday the company “is very excited about the potential of our novel oilseed processing platform and the PIC co-investment “will allow us to expand our internal research capacity and contribute to the building of a Prairie proteins ecosystem.”

Similarly, Tyler Groeneveld, North American commercial grains and oils leader at Corteva, said the company is “excited to work with best-in-class partners like Botaneco” on new end-use opportunities for high-protein canola “beyond traditional feed use.”

Corteva, a merger of the agriculture businesses of Dow Chemical and DuPont, was formally spun off from DowDuPont earlier this month, taking with it the two companies’ grain and oilseed trait and crop protection portfolios.

Extracting “untapped value in feed, food and consumer care” through this project, Groeneveld said Wednesday, would provide “a model in Canadian agriculture for value-chain partnerships.”

PIC’s first call for proposals from its members closes Friday; its second call for projects opens Sept. 1 with a Sept. 13 deadline.

PIC and the four other superclusters — Ocean, Digital Technology, Advanced Manufacturing and Scale.AI — earlier this month also got involved in a new federally-organized administrative arrangement, allowing for “trans-Atlantic cluster collaboration” with similar cluster groups in the European Union. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Premier Blaine Higgs on Friday announced Gagetown-Petitcodiac MLA Ross Wetmore as his minister of agriculture, aquaculture and fisheries.

Wetmore, 65, replaces Andrew Harvey and Benoit Bourque, who had handled the agriculture and fisheries portfolios respectively on an acting basis up until Brian Gallant’s Liberals lost a non-confidence motion Nov. 2.

Gallant had split the ag and fisheries portfolios between two ministers in 2017, though the ag and fisheries departments continued to be managed by one deputy minister and an “integrated management team.”

The incumbent Liberals briefly formed a minority government following the Sept. 24 provincial election, despite winning 21 of 49 seats. The Tories won 22, with the Green and People’s Alliance parties taking three seats each.

Wetmore, a businessman best known as co-owner of Gagetown-based K+W Quality Meats and the Gagetown Marina, came to the legislature in 2010 as the MLA for the riding then known as Grand Lake-Gagetown. He was re-elected in 2014 and again in September.

His previous cabinet and shadow cabinet posts include a stint as legislative secretary to the minister for transportation and infrastructure and most recently as Higgs’ critic for natural resources.

Wetmore has also sat on the standing committee on Crown corporations and the select committee on cannabis. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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Premier Brian Gallant on Wednesday named Cathy LaRochelle, assistant deputy minister for both the provincial department of agriculture, aquaculture and fisheries and the department of energy and resource development, as acting deputy minister for both departments effective Jan. 1, 2018.

In both roles, LaRochelle will replace Jean Finn, who retires effective Dec. 31 after 30 years in the civil service, the province said.

Finn had worked in program management and public policy development for several provincial departments and as assistant deputy minister for energy (2004-08), then as executive vice-president for planning and development with the New Brunswick System Operator (now part of NB Power).

Finn became deputy minister for energy and mines in 2012 before taking his current posts in April last year.

The province last year published its Economic Growth Plan document which pointed to agriculture as one of the sectors on which to focus economic development efforts “where there is real potential for growth.”

Speaking last year before the federal Senate standing committee on agriculture and forestry, LaRochelle said the province is “well positioned to achieve solid growth in agriculture and agrifood for decades to come.”

However, she said, given the province’s relatively small population, “the sector will need to develop strong export markets in order to sustain this proposed growth.”

New Brunswick’s current agricultural footprint, she said, covers only about five per cent of the province, “and we do feel that we have barely scratched the surface given that a large portion of New Brunswick’s land base is suited for some type of agriculture.” — AGCanada.com Network

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