Thank you so much.
Good afternoon, everyone. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee today. My name is Nadine Frost. I am here with Fertilizer Canada.
In case you're not familiar, Fertilizer Canada is the national industry association representing manufacturers, distributors and retail fertilizer companies across Canada—the backbone of Canada's agri-food economy. In the fertilizer sector, we contribute approximately $24 billion annually to Canada's economic activity, and our industry facilities support the employment of over 76,000 individuals.
I want to first speak more generally about the importance of fertilizer transportation within Canada, before moving on to some of the specific challenges we see currently and anticipate with labour shortages impacting the fertilizer supply chain and transportation in our industry.
Our Canadian fertilizer industry is export-driven, and we depend on the safe, secure and efficient transportation of our products to domestic and international markets. Sourced from Saskatchewan, over 95% of Canadian potash is exported to international markets, primarily by rail and through ports in B.C. Canada is also home to nine nitrogen fertilizer plants across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Approximately 45% of the nitrogen fertilizer manufactured in Canada is exported to the United States. Across all modes, over 36 million metric tons of fertilizer are transported in Canada each year, representing 63 billion tonne kilometres of transportation activity.
Our industry is primarily reliant on railways to move these volumes of fertilizers, and our products are some of the highest-volume commodities shipped by rail in Canada. Across the rail sector, there have been many service issues experienced by Canada's fertilizer companies, and many of those are related to crew availability and labour. This means that our sector has little to no redundancy in labour and capacity to manage situations that are not business as usual in the rail sector.
Fertilizer movement to agriculture markets is a highly integrated system. While 75% of fertilizer, by volume, is moved by rail, our member companies also depend on trucking to move our products through the final leg of the journey, from distribution to retail and, ultimately, to farm gate. The peak volumes of fertilizer transported by truck are in the months of March through May, leading into the spring fertilizer application season.
Supply chain disruptions pose a serious challenge to our industry and to food security, both in Canada and in the export markets that rely on Canadian fertilizers or Canadian-grown foods. For Canada's farmers, purchasing and applying fertilizer is a highly time-sensitive process. During critical fertilizer application windows, primarily in the spring and fall—these periods largely determine the course of a farmer's harvest—delay or disruption of access to fertilizer products, even by a few days or a few weeks, can impact the essential products that our farmers need for growing food within Canada and around the world. Hence, labour shortages that impede a farmer's ability to access fertilizer inputs or ship the food they produce will and do have long-term consequences in terms of costs to farmers and harm to domestic and international food security.
I think it's well known that the trucking industries in Canada and the U.S. are facing critical labour shortages. These have a severe impact on the ability of the trucking industry to meet the needs of shippers, like fertilizer companies. A key issue is the reduction in the number of younger individuals entering the sector. This has disproportionately impacted the trucking industry, which is experiencing an aging work force. A lack of new entrants in this sector could mean that there is very limited future capacity to move goods by truck, which will impact the entire supply chain. Furthermore, the movement of some fertilizer products, such as anhydrous ammonia, requires specialized training with regard to the transportation of dangerous goods.
As it has been mentioned as an urgent call to action in the recent national supply chain task force report, Canada must address the transportation supply chain labour shortage. We call on the Government of Canada to act on this task force recommendation and deliver a national supply chain strategy that can address the chronic labour shortages that are being seen and that are anticipated in the transportation sector. We hope this will ensure that supply chains have built-in redundancy and are more resilient to changes in the labour markets.
Thanks again for the opportunity to provide remarks on behalf of Fertilizer Canada.