Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. We'd like to thank all of you for the opportunity to appear before this important committee. We are an agricultural industry, and a healthy and vibrant agricultural industry is essential to the Canadian economy.
The CFI is a not-for-profit industry association. We represent manufacturers, wholesalers, importers, and retail distributors of nitrogen, phosphate, potash, and sulphur fertilizers. With facilities located across Canada, our members produce over 25 million metric tonnes of fertilizer annually. We export more than 20 million tonnes of fertilizer to over 70 countries worldwide. Our members also import over one million tonnes of fertilizer annually.
Our mission is to be the unified voice of the Canadian fertilizer industry by promoting the responsible, sustainable, and safe production, distribution, and use of fertilizers. Today, we are here to discuss how, by delivering on this mission, the fertilizer industry can help promote the competitiveness of Canadian farmers and help them remain competitive in today's global agricultural markets.
I'd like to turn over to Clyde Graham, our vice-president of strategy and alliances. He will go through some of the key points in our brief.