Canada can be a food superpower

Last week, the government of Canada announced its long-awaited food security strategy.

The strategy focuses on issues that Canadians care about: affordability, sovereignty, and the choice to buy Canadian.

But the real story is the economic opportunity that lies before us. Food is an industry operating from coast to coast, in every riding: relevant to every Canadian, and yet hiding in plain sight. Food production is the largest manufacturing employer in Canada.

Canada grows more food than it consumes. We export to markets worldwide. We are home to globally respected farm operations, food manufacturers, researchers, and input producers. Canada produces everything from fruit on the West Coast, to grain in the Prairies, to oysters on the East Coast. Our agricultural land is expanding, and we have the people, water, knowledge, technology, and know-how to expand.

In an era marked by geopolitical tension and economic uncertainty, “Product of Canada” signals something increasingly valuable: trust. Buyers around the world associate Canada with safety, quality, competence, and political stability. These are not branding exercises. They are strategic advantages.

But reputation alone is not enough.

There is a difference between being a food producer and being a food superpower. One treats agriculture as a sector; the other understands food as a strategic advantage.

For too long, Canada has approached food and agriculture as something important, but familiar. A sector to support, regulate, and occasionally celebrate. What this moment requires is ambition.

Canada does not need to invent a new advantage. We already have the land, resources, skilled workforce, scientific expertise, and trusted trade relationships required. Our farmers are the most advanced in the world.

Canada’s agriculture sector punches above its weight, contributing almost $150-billion annually to the country’s GDP and employing 2.3 million people, more than the automotive, forestry, steel and aluminum, and oil and gas sectors combined.

What is missing is not capacity. It is national focus.

Canada will not become a food superpower through incrementalism. We get there by recognizing—at the highest levels—that food is strategic, and that it deserves the same seriousness we bring to energy, defence, or industrial policy.

That means treating the food value chain as a long-term growth engine for the Canadian economy rather than as a collection of disconnected policy files.

A food security strategy is a useful starting point, but it is not sufficient. A recent Farm Credit Canada report showed that if Canada returned to its previous two per cent annual agricultural productivity growth levels, it would create a $30-billion opportunity for Canadian farmers and could generate $31-billion in GDP for the country. Food security is about protecting what we have. Canada should also be asking what we want to become.

That means building more domestic processing capacity to capture more of the value from what we grow. The government's strategy recognizes this opportunity, and provides important support to move us in the right direction. But achieving these ambitions will require a broader, system-wide approach.

It means attracting global investment into food manufacturing, strengthening supply chain infrastructure so we can grow commodity exports, and leveraging Canada’s leadership in agri-tech and innovation to increase productivity.

It also means aligning immigration and labour policy with the sector’s workforce needs, and recognizing that ports, rail, cold-chain logistics, and rural broadband are not peripheral issues. They are foundational to competitiveness.

The barriers to progress are well understood. Regulatory timelines are often too slow and unpredictable for major investment. Responsibility inside government is fragmented across departments and agencies. Food manufacturing remains underrepresented in broader economic policy discussions despite its scale and importance.

None of these problems are insurmountable. But they will not solve themselves.

Prime Minister Mark Carney's government has spoken often and persuasively about resilience, sovereignty, and strategic capacity. It has argued that countries providing certainty in a fractured world will become anchors for others.

We agree. And food is one of the clearest opportunities Canada has to play that role.

Global demand for food and agricultural inputs will continue to rise. At the same time, climate disruption and geopolitical instability are making supply harder to guarantee. Countries that can produce, process, and move food reliably will matter more over the next two decades.

Canada is capable of being one of those countries.

The opportunity is clear, and the foundations already exist. What remains uncertain is whether we are prepared to act with the ambition the moment demands.

Joint opinion piece from Michael Bourque, president and CEO of Fertilizer Canada; Pierre Petelle, president and CEO of CropLife Canada; Ron Lemaire, president of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association; Michael Graydon, CEO of Food Health & Consumer Products of Canada; Scott Ross, executive director of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture; and Tyler Groeneveld, CEO of Protein Industries Canada.

The Hill Times