Thank you very much for this opportunity. This is the first week in about four that I haven't been in Ottawa, so the opportunity to do this by video conference is much appreciated.
India is a market with great potential for the Canadian livestock genetics sector, and we appreciate the support and assistance offered by the Government of Canada in our daily cooperation with CFIA , Agriculture Canada, and Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the potential benefits offered by a CEPA.
I'll do a little introduction of CLGA first.
CLGA is a trade association of those involved in the livestock genetics industry, with about 70 members who do business in about 100 countries. Our membership includes artificial insemination companies, embryo export companies, live animal export companies, and those who provide services to the industry and help us with the development of capacity in other countries by developing genetic evaluation systems, animal management systems, and so on.
Our mandate has us dealing with animal health and market access and market development issues, and our membership comes from the dairy industry, the sheep and goat industry, and the poultry industry. But for the purposes of this hearing, I will confine my comments to the dairy industry.
I'll give a bit of history of the relationship between India and Canada and the dairy genetics industry.
There was limited contact back as far as the 1970s, and in fact, some Canadian Holstein heifers did go to India during that time. The Canadian Hunger Foundation partnered with Bharatiya Agro Industries Foundation, otherwise known as BAIF, and for several years in a row there were deliveries of bovine semen to India. But when the funding for that project ran out, the business stopped. Between then and the early 2000s, there was very limited contact and market access lapsed, so we then had no access for semen or embryos or live animals to India.
In the early 2000s commercial interest began to grow. After some protracted negotiations we were able to get limited access for semen and embryos in India 2005. This was followed by a period during which it was virtually impossible to get import permits. So we got the access but couldn't get permits. That has pretty much been resolved. It's interesting to note that during that period, the three large artificial insemination companies that are members of CLGA all had Indian expatriates as their marketing managers in that region of the world. As we were preparing our long-term international strategies and applications for funding under the agri-marketing program, they all said, “Don't make India a very high priority.” But that has changed. As commercial interest in India has grown, the pressure to get full access to the country and to engage in the capacity-building that is required in the dairy industry has been great.
The issues that we've encountered in India with respect to technical market access include their claim of having very few resources to devote to negotiations with the countries that want to work in India, and so they have tried to develop a protocol that all countries will have to comply with. This continues to be a reason or excuse for the delays that we continue to encounter in achieving our market access goals there. Clearly, having one animal-health protocol or technical protocol in terms of zootechnics for all countries simply doesn't work. It creates huge delays in achieving our goals and in their achieving their own development goals.
As I mentioned, the outstanding technical issues are related to animal health and testing for genetic abnormalities, which is a very much outdated approach to things. It fails to recognize the authorities in various countries that are responsible for those issues.
There's also an issue with a lack of coordination between the people who negotiate market access in the capital and those on the frontier—at airports, for example— who have to receive shipments. We end up with shipments of goods being held at the airport or at the port of entry, and that again leads to costly delays.
I'll say a word about the Indian dairy industry. India produces more milk than any other nation on earth—cattle and buffalo milk—and they are proudly self-sufficient. But consumption is increasing at a faster rate than production can be increased in the traditional and old-fashioned system that currently exists in India. Realizing this, the Indian government has secured a World Bank loan to begin the process of modernizing their dairy industry.
In response to a request made by the Indian agriculture minister to both the Premier of Saskatchewan and Minister Ritz, in 2010 CLGA contracted the Saskatchewan Research Council, which, with funding support from the agri-marketing program, conducted an analysis of the Indian dairy industry and made recommendations on the issues that needed to be addressed first. The report was accepted, and the Indian minister designated lead responsibility for its implementation to the National Dairy Development Board, or the NDDB.
The Canadian dairy genetics sector remains committed to the capacity-building task in India, but this will in part be funded by the opportunity to conduct business. That is why science-based technical market access and transparent and expedient import processes are essential as part of the package.
An Indian technical mission to Canada was undertaken in the fall of 2011. In 2012 the chairperson of the National Dairy Development Board also visited Canada. So far, however, none of the recommendations in the SRC report have been acted upon. It is unclear what the next steps will be.
It is our impression that the forces of change and the forces of tradition have collided, and the realities of modernizing the Indian dairy industry are being sorted out. We are currently working with our partners and with Agriculture Canada on a Canadian mission to India to try to re-establish priorities and decide what the next steps will be.
In the meantime, competitor nations are very actively courting the Indian government and the Indian industry, with representatives of those countries and those industries posted in India and assigned to study tours for decision-makers to other countries. We hope that the CEPA will help Canada stay ahead of the pack.
Thank you very much.