Thank you, Chairman.
Thank you to the committee for having Soy Canada here today.
I appeared before the committee not very long ago, so I thought I would try to truncate the introductory message about who we are and so on to say that Soy Canada is a value-chain organization. We represent the national soybean industry, including all of the producers across Canada of soybeans, the exporters of food grade and commodity soybeans, soybean processors, and seed companies.
The industry is growing rapidly in Canada. Farmers in large numbers are adopting soybeans as part of their crop rotation. We have 5.4 million acres of soybeans, which is an 82% increase over the last decade. This year we've had a 250% increase in our exports as a result of additional production in Canada. We now export 4.4 million metric tonnes, or roughly 70% of what we produce in Canada.
Our industry produces non-GMO food-grade soybeans, and we have an absolutely excellent record internationally for meeting very specific quality standards for soybeans that are going to be used for food products internationally, such as soy milk, tofu, soy sauces, and those kinds of products.
We also have a growing industry in growing what's called genetically modified or commodity soybeans, which are largely used in the animal feed industry internationally. The enormous growth in Asian meat production—swine, cattle, and so on—is what's driving this enormous demand for soybeans internationally, and Canada is increasingly feeding that market.
That's just a bit of a profile of our industry.
With respect to the agriculture policy framework, the importance of the framework, in my mind, really cannot be overstated. It's a really critical aspect of Canadian agriculture these days. It's very broad in scope, and Soy Canada supports the objectives and the priority areas that were identified recently in the Calgary Statement by the federal and provincial ministers. We support the continued emphasis on existing policy areas.
Growing Forward 2 was very, very good for the sector. It focused on markets and trade, innovation, and risk management. Those continue to be important, and continuing to improve in those areas is important. We also welcome a focus on climate, public trust, and value-added processing, which are part of the new Calgary Statement.
Today I'd like to focus on a couple of priority areas that Soy Canada has identified. They are mostly in the areas of innovation and market access and promotion.
Today's agriculture really is all about innovation. The development of new seed varieties, which addresses the needs of our customers globally and which provide new tools such as yield gain and disease resistance for our farmers, is a big Canadian strategic advantage. The new agriculture policy framework needs to continue to invest in research and innovation and continually improve on collaboration and efficiency of that investment. We should build on the success of the policy framework in this area. A lot of the growth of the industry recently is based on having that support from Agriculture Canada's policy framework.
Many of the leading soybean varieties, for example, that are grown by farmers today have been developed with support from the APF, supported by research stations and universities such as the ones in Harrow, Guelph, and Ottawa. Those are the Ontario-based ones.
The APF's research cluster program is an excellent example of how industry and government researchers can align their efforts for more effective and efficient results in research. It facilitates nationwide cross-institutional collaborations. This is really important when competing against much larger exporters. In the soybean sector, both in food soybeans and crushed soybeans, we compete against the United States and their enormous volumes and institutional support. Bringing together our industry and making sure the private sector, universities, and the public sector collaborate is the only way that we can get the kind of efficiency and alignment needed to compete in those kinds of markets.
The cluster groups have been a very positive force in that industry and have shown considerable collaboration in tackling a number of agronomic and genomic priorities.
For example, over the last six years, the Canadian Field Crop Research Alliance, which is a cluster group that supports soybean research, has been successful in releasing over 63 new soybean varieties that provide innovation for farmers and new quality characteristics for customers.
Publicly funded research has helped push the boundaries of soybean production in Canada, greatly facilitating growth in our industry.
Over the past 10 years, new short-season varieties that have been developed through this research have led to major production growth now in Eastern Ontario and Manitoba, two regions that have traditionally been a challenge for growing soybeans because they have shorter growing seasons. Our university-based researchers benefiting from APF support have also developed new shorter season varieties, as have our private sector breeders.
In June, Soy Canada brought together the national soybean research community to focus our efforts and to align priorities. We want to get the best from our national collaboration, including public and private researchers. The priorities developed through this approach will go into our sector's development of jointly funded research in the next APF funding round. The cluster approach to funding encourages this collaboration, so we strongly support it.
This strategy of innovation is aligned with our priorities for market development and market access. These linkages are an important consideration for APF design. In addition to being innovative to support competitiveness, we need to have predictable access to international markets. Seventy percent of Canada's soybean production is exported, and that's going to increase in the future with production increases.
Two priorities stand out when it comes to continued support for market development and market access.
First, continue to support existing APF programs that are working. One that I have in mind is the AgriMarketing program, which has helped our industry promote Canadian soybeans in export markets and maintain and secure market access. It's a jointly funded program. Government provides 50% support, industry provides 50% support, and it's an industry-led initiative to determine the requirements we have for promotion and for market access issues. It supports promotion in new markets and assists in resolving market access issues. AgriMarketing funding supports Soy Canada's outgoing and incoming trade mission program, market research studies, and other activities that help build and retain markets.
In February of 2016, Soy Canada was able to undertake its first mission to South Korea and leverage the advantages from the recent free trade agreement and make important business contacts. Last week we participated in Minister MacAulay's trade mission to China, an opportunity that put us directly in front of importers in our largest market. We see that program as being really very helpful and we look forward to it in the future, as well as improvements to it.
Second—and I'm saying things similar to what was in Claire's presentation—it's important that government focus its resources in key departments on market development support and market access. Our industry and other sectors of agriculture benefit from the support of Agriculture Canada's market access secretariat, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Canadian Grain Commission, and Agriculture Canada's trade support staff in foreign missions.
Increasingly, we see these agencies straining to keep up with the demand from the sector for assistance in export markets. In many cases, this work is not substitutable by any other means. For example, CFIA has a unique role. It is Canada's official plant protection organization for negotiating with its counterparts around the world and applying sound science to trade-related issues. Its international role is important to agriculture market access, but we find it it very focused on its domestic focus, the safety of Canadian humans and animals and so on, which obviously is a critical mandate. However, its role in terms of science and regulation internationally is critically important to our market access, and there is no other government institution that can stand in and do that work.
Those are the key areas.
We also really welcomed the Calgary discussions around public trust and climate. Despite the excellent track record that our industry has on stewardship and safety, we understand that the public is increasingly calling for more information and transparency. It's important that the agriculture sector maintain the trust of consumers. It is up to our sector to explain and build awareness, and we share this responsibility with government.
The next program should assist in the development of vehicles to bring consumers, governments, and civil society together with the farm community. It should assist in developing certification systems and standards that demonstrate best practices being followed in the sector.
Likewise, Canadian agriculture has to do its part in addressing climate change, and we are. When it comes to the stewardship of our natural resources, we have a lot to talk about. Since 1981, Canadian soybean production land use efficiency has increased by 16%. Over the same period, farmers have improved the net carbon footprint per unit of soybean output by 11%, and soybean growers are using 26% less energy in crop production. However, we need to demonstrate this. We need to talk about it more and let Canadians know we are doing these things.
Canadians have concerns about the use of technology in the production of their food, and it's—