Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I've been last before. People say I've been last more often than not.
Mr. Hoffman has just given a good introduction to our industry. I'll say a few words about our wild blueberry industry here in Nova Scotia and in this region.
It's not a cottage industry. We have 1,100 producer members in our organization, managing some 44,000 acres of wild blueberry land in Nova Scotia and producing consistently over 300 million pounds of wild blueberries annually in our regional industry. In Nova Scotia it's our largest agricultural export, exceeding $100 million in export sales last year.
Those export markets are, as you know, Mr. Chairman, the U.S. domestic market, Europe as a bloc, and east Asia as a bloc, principally Japan. We feel that most of our market opportunities going forward, as our industry now consistently is producing such a volume of fruit, are in the Asian markets. Some of the countries represented in the TPP proposal are on the short list of prospective markets going forward. We think most of our increased future market opportunities would be in the Asian market. Market access is extremely important for us in those developing areas.
Japan is our principal Asian market. We've been there for many years, since the 1970s. Our business is mostly ingredient-focused. In all of our export markets, we deal with companies as customers who are producing consumer food products using wild blueberries as an ingredient, as well as other fruit. We have to be competitive with things that can be substituted for our product in those markets. Continued market access in Japan is very important to us. More unfettered market access to some of those developing markets that Mr. Hoffman mentioned would also be a high priority for us in developing those future markets.
Finally, 90% of our Canadian wild blueberry crop is exported to foreign countries. It's a big driver of the rural economy, as you know. There are a lot of jobs at stake in rural Nova Scotia and throughout this region.
That concludes my remarks. Thank you very much.