Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting me to testify.
My name is Serge Beaulieu and I am a maple producer from Ormstown in the Montérégie region of Quebec. I am also the president of the Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec, an organization founded in 1966. Our mission is to support the economic, moral and social interests of the 7,400 maple syrup companies in Quebec. We represent the men and women who work together in order to market their product collectively. Because of the quality of their work, today, Quebec provides 75% of the world’s maple syrup production. Total Canadian production represents 80% of the world’s production.
The Fédération des producteurs acéricoles du Québec welcomes the proposed free-trade agreement between Canada and Europe as a positive development. The agreement means that tariffs on exports of maple syrup and other agricultural products to Europe will be eliminated. This will help the Canadian maple industry to break into new markets, and to set our products apart from, say, American products.
For a number of years, maple producers and processors have invested in research and development in order to develop new products and to promote the health benefits of maple syrup. For the last seven or eight years, we have been investing money we receive from the federal government and money from producers and processors into that kind of research. Each time we have conducted research into the benefits of maple syrup, it has had a positive impact and has allowed us to develop our product around the world.
In 2012, the countries of Europe represented between 18% and 20% of the market share for maple syrup and maple products exported around the world. That had a value of $48 million for a volume of 14 million to 20 million pounds of maple syrup. After the United States, Europe is the second biggest export market for Canadian maple syrup. So Europe is a major market for our industry.
For a long time, our federation has been asking federal authorities to work towards the elimination of European tariffs because their effect was to limit the volume we could export. In recent years, our federation has also held a number of promotional activities there, specifically in France, Germany and England.
Working with la Financière agricole du Québec, we have funded promotional activities in Europe by reimbursing some of the expenses of maple producers in a number of markets. More recently, with the help of the provincial and federal governments, some leading chefs have been named as maple ambassadors. As well as promoting the delights of maple products to people over there, their mission is also to use their creativity and imagination to come up with new taste experiences. This is one of the ways in which we are moving maple products to new frontiers. Simply put, we have to continue our efforts to reach new consumers in that pool of 500 million people.
However, the federation is concerned by some aspects of this agreement. If the present 8% customs tariff disappears, we hope that the savings will result in more maple syrup being sold in Europe and not in more middlemen becoming involved in distributing it. Specifically, in order to promote maple syrup sales in Europe and to fully benefit from the signing of the agreement, it is critical that financial initiatives begin now so that the volume of exports can increase.
In that light, last March, the federation submitted a funding request to Agriculture and Agri-food Canada’s AgriMarketing program. As of now, it seems that a part of the proposal will be rejected. That does not increase our chances of making inroads in this free trade environment. So we hope that the federal government will support the funding request to the AgriMarketing program in its entirety. We can then take full advantage of the lowering of tariffs in European markets. In the past, we have observed that, any time investments have been made in promoting our product, such as by having people taste it, its development has been enhanced.
That is more or less an overview of the federation's position.
Do you have any questions?