Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee.
My name is Gary Stanford. I'm a farmer from southern Alberta. With me today is Richard Phillips, also with the Grain Growers of Canada.
The Grain Growers of Canada represent 80,000 successful farmers from across Canada. We grow a wide assortment of wheat, barley, oats, canola, rye, triticale, peas, lentils, and beans. Canada is a world leader in agricultural trade. We are the fourth largest agrifood exporter in the world, exporting half of our beef, cattle, and wheat, 60% of our hogs' pork, and 70% of our canola.
Across Canada, just over 90% of farms are directly dependent on export markets. They either export their products or sell them domestically, at internationally set marketplace prices. This represents over 200,000 farms and includes a majority of farms in every province in Canada. More open and fair trading systems are essential for the future growth and prosperity of Canada's agrifood sector and the Canadian economy as a whole.
Our preference is for a successful conclusion to the Doha round of world trade talks, but until these talks resume in a meaningful way, bilaterals can achieve major gains for us or at least keep us competitive with other exporters. However, bilaterals do not get at the issues of domestic subsidies, domestic supports, and export subsidies. Many of these hurt not only Canadian farmers but farmers in the developing world as well. It is important that you as politicians of all parties encourage the government to actively push other countries to get back to the table at the WTO.
Now I'd like to turn the time over to Richard and why Jordan is strategically important for the agricultural issues.