Thanks very much. I regret that I'm not able to be with you in person, to sit next to my colleagues from New Brunswick. The pork industry actually started my professional career in agriculture. I was working on climate change with the pork industry, so it's interesting how we've come back together.
I'm in Abu Dhabi this week. We're promoting Canadian export forages around the world, so I'll touch on that a bit later.
I do want to echo Hans' comments, and thank the committee for the opportunity to appear before you today. I don't believe you have my speaking notes in front of you, but they have been submitted.
I just wanted to give a bit of an overview on the scope of the Canadian forage sector. We are roughly 70 million acres strong in Canada. Roughly 34 million acres are seeded to tame hay, pasture, and forage seed crops; and the remaining 36 million are dedicated to native rangeland which is largely in western Canada.
To contrast that to the field crop sector, in 2017, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's 2017 “Outlook for Principal Field Crops”, there were roughly 65 million acres of annual crops planted in Canada. The forage sector as a whole is actually five million acres more than the whole of the annual crop sector. We do cut a fair swath across the landscape in Canadian agriculture.
The uses of our forages are obviously tied very closely to the ruminant livestock industries. In Canada this includes primarily beef, dairy, sheep, goat, and bison, to a lesser extent; and the equine sector, surprisingly, consumes a lot of forage in Canada. It's surprising when you get right down to it. I know in New Brunswick there are as many horses as there are dairy cows or beef cows. It is a significant industry and it consumes a lot of Canadian forage.
Roughly 5% of production in Canada is exported to destinations in the U.S., Japan, Korea, China, and the Middle East. We're here this week representing the industry. The forages exported here are largely timothy and alfalfa hays to service the dairy, in the majority of cases, but there's a significant use by the horse, sheep, goat, and actually camel industries. I've never been to a camel farm, but tomorrow we are venturing into the desert to see one. I'm very much looking forward to that.
In terms of economic value of the forage sector, based on the 2011 census of agriculture data, the industry was pegged at about $5.09 billion, making it the third-largest crop after wheats and canola, so it has a significant, direct impact to Canadian agriculture. Also, being the foundation crop for Canadian dairy and beef industries, we're supporting their $11-billion industry, which in turn supports roughly $50 billion in annual value chain economic activity in Canada. Again, in addition to being dominant across the landscape, it's also making a significant economic contribution.
The environmental contribution which we're speaking about today is also fairly impressive. When we talk about environmental contribution, we talk largely about the ecological goods and services, EG and S, provided; and those would include, but are not limited to erosion control, flood control, improved surface water quality, wildlife habitat, pollination services, and soil carbon sequestration, which has been a major focus for us over the last couple of years. I'll describe a large project we have on the go in a few moments.
Dr. Doug Yungblut, in 2012, did a study on the full economic value of the industry and the ecological goods and services value, and the suggestion from this report is that in Saskatchewan alone, the EG and S value contribution is somewhere between $895 million to $1.9 billion, and in Alberta, respectively, $390 million to $1.3 billion.
The high estimate for Alberta and Saskatchewan alone is over $3 billion in ecological goods and services annually. It's a significant contribution.
One of our challenges is that we don't have a comprehensive market process that allows us to monetize even a portion of that EG and S value that is provided by Canadian forage producers to the Canadian public at large. That is having an impact on the prevalence of forage across the landscape. We are certainly seeing forage acres decrease over time, which is largely following the decrease in the beef sector output. As you're aware, that industry has been shrinking somewhat, year over year, for the last number of years. There are a number of regional programs, however, that are working to incentivize forage inclusion in crop rotations. I'll talk about those in a few moments as well.
I want to touch briefly on some of the challenges we have, particularly as a national industry. Again, we're 70 million acres and very diverse. Coming from eastern Canada myself, and working largely through Quebec and into Ontario, the prevalence of confined feeding systems means that most of our forages are harvested from the field, stored, and then fed in confinement-type situations. The beef industry does still employ grazing during the summer. This means that we're seeing forages that are intermixed with annual crops. From a sustainability perspective, it's very important for us to pay close attention to soil conservation and livestock manure management practices so that we're ensuring that long-term soil health is maintained and manure nutrients are managed effectively and responsibly.
Hans mentioned in his statement as well the importance of soil health and responsible manure management use. I echo that wholeheartedly.