I am Dag Falck. I represent Nature's Path, a privately held, family-owned producer of all-certified organic foods. We are North America's largest organic breakfast and snack food company and are committed to triple bottom-line social enterprise. Our company is regularly named one of Canada's best employers, and we export to over 40 countries. We own 6,500 acres of organic farmland in Saskatchewan and Montana. Nature's Path also serves as an outlet processor for many independent organic family farmers, representing approximately 100,000 organic acres.
Food plays a critical role in the health and well-being of Canadians, while also having a direct impact on our environment, economy, and communities. A food policy that incorporates organic principles is a way to address issues related to production, processing, distribution, and consumption of food. A food policy that mimics our ethics at Nature's Path, which means always leaving the earth better than we found it, would help Canada advance the cause of people on the planet along the path to sustainability.
Canada's organic food market share has grown to 2.6% of the overall food and beverage category in mainstream retail, up from 1.7% in 2012. Also, 66% of Canadians purchase organic food weekly, and 88% say they will continue to maintain or increase their purchases in the coming year. As a producer and importer of organic raw ingredients and the company that sells domestically and abroad, Canada organics' 8.7% market share growth since 2012 is only going to grow as Canadians continue to demand food that meets their values and lifestyles, and as it becomes increasingly available in all communities across the country.
Canada has an opportunity to be a leader by embracing organic production and creating domestic and international opportunities with a triple bottom-line return to the environment, the economy, and health, as part of the food policy for Canada.
Global hunger is rising for the first time in more than a decade, according to FAO, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Some 815 million people, 11% of the world population—mainly children—are still food insecure, and that difficulty arises from limited access, poor infrastructure, and climate change. The macro-economy and political stability are a big challenge in the achievement of hunger reduction. The increase in food-related diseases, obesity, diabetes, and growing resistance to antibiotics are putting serious pressures on health care systems in developed countries like Canada.
Despite the unpredictability of factors such as climate change, crop losses, and price volatility in agricultural commodities, all of which cannot yet be controlled by any production model, organic farming represents one of the key innovations in the domain of food and agriculture over the last century. It is based on a socially inclusive, economically and ecologically resilient systems approach for the production of foodstuffs and renewable raw materials. Its global success is demonstrated by about 2.4 million operators in 2015 in 179 countries who contribute to food production by using local resources, thus reducing their dependence on external inputs and increasing their own resilience to external shocks, currency fluctuations, oil prices, and natural calamities.
It is time to recognize the organic farming model as an efficient and effective approach to combat climate change, as well as to preserve biodiversity, soil fertility, and public health in our Canadian food system.