Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Kathleen Sullivan. I'm executive director of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance. As the chair has pointed out, I'm joined here by Richard Phillips, who sits on our executive.
CAFTA is a coalition of national and regional Canadian organizations that support a more open and transparent international trading environment for agriculture and food products. Our members include Canada's major agriculture exporters—the beef, pork, grain, and oilseed sectors, just to name a few of them—and we represent producers, processors, and exporters, so we're very broad-based.
Canada is the fourth-largest agriculture and food exporter in the world. We rank behind only the EU, the United States, and Brazil. We export half of our beef and cattle, half of our grains, at least 60% of our hogs and pork, and well over 70% of our canola production. Across Canada, nine out of every ten farmers depend on export markets.
But while Canada is a world leader in agriculture and food trade today, there is no doubt that our place in the world is slipping. When it comes to agriculture and food exports, our trade growth is being outpaced by countries such as Argentina, Indonesia, and India, which could surpass Canada in total agriculture and food exports within the next few years.
When it comes to food exports alone, we've already slipped from third place to ninth place in world standings in just the last decade. It is essential that Canada build and expand export markets for our agriculture and food products. We need to identify and pursue meaningful bilateral and regional trade deals that offer significant benefits for Canadian agri-food sectors.
We are particularly enthusiastic about the Canada-EU negotiations that are currently under way. Outside the WTO, the Canada-EU CETA is the greatest trade opportunity that our sector has seen in a generation, and it's highly unlikely we're going to see anything that matches its magnitude for many years to come.
First of all, the European marketplace is huge. Europe has 500 million people who in large measure share our tastes and values. In particular, they have a very developed taste for higher-value food products.
Second, we are currently under-servicing Europe as a marketplace. Our current exports to the EU from an agriculture standpoint are just one-tenth of what we ship to the United States every year. We have virtually no access into Europe for our beef and our pork products. In fact, we now ship more Canadian cheese to Europe than we ship Canadian pork or Canadian beef.
Third, we are plagued by European non-tariff barriers that can effectively undermine the market access we have in important areas such as our oilseeds sector, for example.
The Canada-EU CETA is an important opportunity for Canada to make significant headway into Europem, and to do it ahead of some of our major trading partners and competitors, such as the United States. A joint Canada-EU study has estimated that Canadian-processed food exports to the EU could grow by about $2 billion a year—that's about 140% growth—while our primary agriculture exports could grow by another $1 billion; that's about a 40% growth. The numbers are really quite staggering.
Because this agreement is so broad and so comprehensive, and because the EU has priorities that lie outside of agriculture, there are really unique and unprecedented opportunities for Canada to pursue aggressive advances in market access and in addressing non-tariff barriers for our agriculture and our food exporters. We are a trading nation, and a more open trade system is essential for the future growth and prosperity of Canada's agri-food sector.
We continue to believe that the WTO has much life in it. Mr. McLaren and I have had this conversation a few times in the past. We're quite optimistic that we will find a way forward through the WTO, and it continues to be our priority in agriculture. It really remains the best way to achieve a rules-based system for agricultural trade and it is the only vehicle that can address the comprehensive range of trade issues and barriers that face global agriculture trade in a way that's transparent and rules-based.
But the Canada-EU CETA is a critical agreement for Canada's agri-food sectors. It could open EU markets for key agriculture and food exports and it could address long-standing and future non-tariff barriers in a manner that is precedent-setting.
I think Richard is going to add a few comments on that.