Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to have an opportunity to appear before you this afternoon.
My name is Krista Thomas. I'm the director of plant innovation with the Canada Grains Council. The Canada Grains Council is Canada's national umbrella organization for the grains sector, with over 30 members representing seed and life science companies and associations, grower groups, commodity organizations, and grain companies. Accordingly, we work on issues that are important to the entire value chain and that impact the grains, cereals, oilseeds, and pulses grown in Canada.
One of the Grains Council's most important areas of focus today is seed innovation. You might ask exactly what is meant by seed innovation. Does that refer to biotechnology, or GMOs? Yes, it absolutely does, but I'm also referring to the very latest, cutting-edge tools to be added to the plant breeders' tool box, those based on gene editing systems such as CRISPR-Cas9.
The CGC has two main objectives for seed innovation. The first is to create a domestic environment that drives innovation in the crop sector, which means having pre-market regulatory programs that are predictable and clear and that do not inadvertently prevent or delay innovators from acting on new opportunities. Second, with up to 90% of our commodities destined for international markets, Canada needs to think and work collectively with other countries on regulation, because failing to do so will leave a patchwork of divergent regulatory approaches leading to trade disruptions and an unpredictable environment for innovators, growers, and exporters.
This is a very timely discussion to be having today. Canada has set a very ambitious target of reaching $75 billion in agrifood exports annually by 2025. Grains contribute over $22 billion of these exports today. That's more than any other agrifood sector. Accordingly, we want to do our fair share or more to help us reach that target. This means activities such as working closely with the Government of Canada to address non-tariff trade barriers such as maximum residue limits for crop protection products, as Pierre mentioned, but our members also believe that seed innovation will play a driving role.
In particular, gene editing can speed up the development of new crop varieties. For some crops, this means a variety development in two years instead of 10. In addition, many products of gene editing might not fall under the same complex global regulatory and trading environment that we have today for products of biotechnology or GMOs. This opens up more opportunities for innovation in small or orphan crops and a wider range of small or medium-sized companies.
The types of benefits possible through seed innovation include agronomic traits that are certainly beneficial to the grains sector. Traits such as higher yield or better weed control, greater disease resistance, or stress tolerance allow growers to produce more every year while using the same or smaller amounts of land and inputs. However, seed innovation is also delivering more consumer-focused traits to help meet the demand for healthier food, such as higher fibre flour or oil with healthier fat profiles. These, too, offer opportunities for grain growers and for value-added products.
Lastly, we are also seeing innovation in areas that will help farms be more environmentally sustainable, adapt to climate change, or help to reduce food waste.
With all these benefits available, with Canada's strengths in agricultural research, and with our leadership role and success in biotechnology, Canada should also be among the global leaders in gene editing systems for crop development, but today we are worried that Canada is at risk of falling behind our key trading partners and that Canada might lose its share of investment in new crop innovation.
We're very encouraged by the efforts of the economic strategy tables and superclusters to encourage innovation in Canada and by the acknowledgement in budget 2018 of the role that regulatory programs play, either in supporting or hindering innovation. However, our members have identified a pressing need to update and provide greater clarity and predictability around Canada's pre-market programs for regulating products of seed innovation. This, in turn, will better support Canada to engage our trading partners, and align internationally—where possible—in support of a predictable global trading environment.
Thank you for the invitation to be here today. I look forward to your questions.