Most Canadians interact with agriculture only in the grocery store – often worrying about high food prices. With their daily preoccupations and the physical distance between where they live, work and shop, and most farms, it is not a surprise that many people are unaware of the sector’s importance.

However, agriculture is an increasingly important strategic asset and the time is right for Canada to put it at the core of future plans.

This April’s federal budget is an opportunity to commit to a more strategic, ambitious vision for agriculture and food, with investments focused on growth and sustainable prosperity, along with a variety of other measures.

While the opportunity is significant, agriculture and food have unique dynamics that make it a more challenging sector than most. In fact, it is often inappropriate to think of it as a “sector.” Rather it is a collection of value chains that produce very different products, serving very different domestic and international markets.

For example, cows and pigs are animals that produce animal proteins, but producing beef and pork requires very different approaches. The products also end up in different markets. In 2022, 43 per cent of Canadian beef was exported but that figure is almost 70 per cent for pork.

A farmer in Western Canada may grow canola, wheat and pulse crops in rotation, but the canola may end up as renewable diesel fuel, the wheat ground into flour in Canada and around the world, and the pulse crops exported to India, where crops grown in Saskatchewan end up part of a difficult geopolitical relationship.

The supply-managed sectors focus on serving the domestic market, looking to take advantage of........

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