Federal Agriculture Minister, Lawrence MacAulay, wrapped up part one of his Growing Canadian Agriculture tour on
Tuesday, July 17.

On the tour, he met with farmers, processors, and industry leaders, and also participated in rural agricultural events to hear ideas on how to capture new growth opportunities for the sector.

MacAulay says agriculture is part of Canada's future.

“The whole industry, from the processor to the grocery store, they all depend on the farmer for growing their business, generating jobs, and putting food on the tables in Canada and right around the world. In fact, it all comes back to the farmer.”

He adds temporary foreign worker programs were discussed on his three week tour.

“Yes we need to streamline the issue. But the ag sector is doing quite well, the economy of course is increasing, and people involved in the ag sector have indicated too that they understand the economy is increasing, which means demand for more workers,” MacAulay said. “But, we need to make sure we improve this process and we will.”

During MacAulay’s stops along the tour, he announced investments in Canada’s agriculture industry.

These included investments in Canada's dairy, greenhouse and ginseng sectors, as well as over $40 million in new agricultural research clusters for the crops, pork, beef and grape and wine sectors.

MacAulay is now at the annual Conference of the Federal, Provincial and Territorial Ministers of Agriculture in Vancouver, BC.

The conference started Wednesday, July 18 and runs until Friday, July 20.

 

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