Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. It's a real pleasure to be here today to talk with you about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and what it means to the canola industry.
Canola is made in Canada, but our success really depends on international trade. I know that's a message you've heard from some of my colleagues in Alberta and Saskatchewan previously.
Some of you are familiar with the Canola Council, but for those of you who haven't met us before, we are a value-chain organization representing the entire canola industry, from the 43,000 canola farmers to the life science companies to the grain handlers to the canola processors who transform that crop into oil for human consumption and meal for livestock feed.
Our industry has a plan to meet the world's growing appetite for healthier oils and proteins. Our plan is called Keep It Coming 2025. The plan is to increase demand for canola oil, meal, and seed and to meet this demand through sustainable production and yield improvement, achieving 26 million metric tonnes of production by 2025.
When we developed this strategy about three years ago, the industry was producing about 15 million metric tonnes, just for comparison. It's a significant strategy for growth.
Market access is a critical part of that plan. More than 90% of our production is exported as seed, oil, or meal, and so access to a variety of markets free of tariffs and, equally important, non-tariff trade barriers allows our industry to earn most of the value from international markets. The TPP represents a critical opportunity for the industry to earn more value from those markets.
By eliminating tariffs on canola oil and meal in Japan and Vietnam, our industry estimates that we'll increase the value of our exports by $780 million each year. I'd like to touch on how that impacts each sector of the value chain.
The TPP will support seed developers. Seed developers will benefit as a more valuable crop means the demand for seed innovation will grow. The TPP also includes provisions to make the country's science-based approval processes for new biotechnology trades more transparent, something that's critical to our industry.
The TPP will support growers. Growers will benefit from this agreement as demand for their product will grow and trade will be more stable. More canola being processed in Canada means farmers have more delivery options, and the aspects of the TPP around biotechnology and sanitary and phytosanitary agreements mean that there's more stable trade and less risk.
The TPP will support processors. Of course, that's the main point of benefit as the tariffs on oil and meal will be eliminated. Until now, Canadian processors have been unable to sell value-added canola oil to Japan because of the high tariffs. With TPP, processors will be able to process more seed in Canada.
I think in the past people have talked about the fact that Australia already has a bilateral agreement with Japan, and tariffs have come down. In fact, we are already seeing oilseeds from Australia to Japan increase, and our industry is standing by unable to sell.
The TPP will support exporters. They'll benefit from more stable trade because of the TPP provisions on low-level presence of biotech traits and phytosanitary measures.
The TPP is the first trade agreement to establish a process for when cases of low-level presence occur. This means finding a really small amount of biotech crops, which have already been proven safe, going into shipments. This means that grain doesn't need to cause a significant trade disruption if those traits are found.
Enhanced discipline on sanitary and phytosanitary measures will also prevent unnecessary trade disputes. The world globally is going through significant food and feed safety regulatory reform. China has. We have, and the United States has. Consumers are more and more aware of food and feed safety, and so the sanitary and phytosanitary measures and processes are critical to have stable trade for our industry.
For any of these benefits to materialize, Canada needs to implement the TPP as soon as possible. As I said, we're already falling behind the Australians. Each year that goes by, we fall further behind in Japan. Japan has actually been one of our longest-standing customers in the canola industry.
Let me close by saying that canola has grown to be one of the largest sources of farm income. As a competitive exporter, we contribute more than $19 billion a year to the Canadian economy, and we support 249,000 jobs across the country. Maintaining and growing this prosperity requires that we implement the TPP as soon as possible.
Thank you.