Mr. Chairman, committee members, I am pleased to be here. You all have our speaking notes, that were presented earlier, with some background information.
Just by way of introduction, the National Cattle Feeders' Association was established in 2007 to represent Canadian cattle feeders on national issues, and to work in collaboration with other cattle organizations across the country. Our key areas of focus include improving industry competitiveness, increasing domestic value-added production, expanding markets for Canadian beef, and reducing the regulatory burden for our sector. The members of the National Cattle Feeders' Association are: the BC Association of Cattle Feeders, the Alberta Cattle Feeders' Association, the Saskatchewan Cattle Feeders' Association, the Manitoba Beef Producers Association, the Ontario Cattle Feeders' Association, and la Fédération des producteurs de bovins du Québec.
The National Cattle Feeders' Association supports the CETA and expressed this directly and via our membership in the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, otherwise known as CAFTA.
CAFTA is a coalition of national and regional producer groups and industry associations that support an open and transparent international trading environment for our agri-food sectors. Collectively, CAFTA members represent about 80% of Canada's $42 billion in annual agri-food exports. For the NCFA and other CAFTA members, this deal holds real promise for the agri-food sector with an estimated increase of $1.5 billion in new agri-food exports each year.
The government's trade agenda is in keeping with the National Cattle Feeders' Association priorities of expanding markets for Canadian beef. The CETA will bring upwards of $600 million in added value to the beef sector, which translates into roughly 500,000 head per year.
There are some other benefits of the CETA, which my colleague will address.