Hi. I'm Gary Martin from southern Lambton County. I'm part of a farm there that's been in operation for 150 years as of last year.
I'll give you a bit of the history of our farm. Back in the fifties, my grandfather and father used to grow sugar beets. We still have some of the wagons kicking around the farm today. As for the history of the sugar beet industry, sugar beets had been grown locally well before 1900 and were processed in Michigan. In 1901 sugar processing plants were built in Wallaceburg, Dresden, Kitchener, and Wiarton. Further consolidations after those plants were built resulted in one company processing beet sugar until 1967, all the way from 1920. When cheap imported cane sugar took over, they stopped producing sugar from sugar beets.
Where are we today?
The U.S. has a protected sugar industry and bans sugar imports. The local producers today in Canada are allowed to export beets to Michigan, where they're further processed in Michigan. Beet farmers in Lambton County and Chatham-Kent are excited that the TPP will again allow for local sugar processing, with U.S. accepting imports. However, on further inspection, it appears that the TPP falls short in guaranteeing the increased market access to the United States that would allow for the investment and processing in Canada.
The main problem of predicting market viability for sugar is that sugar happens to be the most distorted traded agricultural product worldwide, with domestic exports and trade-distorting policies across the world, while Canadian processors cannot benefit from these policies.
Thank you.