APAS President Todd Lewis is in Ottawa this week taking part in the Canadian Federation of Agriculture's Annual Meeting.
On Monday, Lewis met with Ambassador Cong - the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China.
He said they talked about how important the trading relationship with China has been over the years and that politics and food really don’t mix.
‘We're going through a bumpy time now in canola; but, I mean it’s important to recognize that for instance peas, we've increased our trade with peas with China. It's not just canola there's a number of crops and livestock that go into China. Canada's been very successful in those markets and China's an important market for all sorts of Canadian commodities. So, he was very receptive with the points we put across and the conversation we had.”
Lewis says they also talked about the Coronavirus and the impact it is having on China.
A key issue of discussion during the CFA’s Annual Meeting is expected to be the rail blockades.
Rail blockades continue to pop up across the country slowing rail movement of agricultural goods to Port.
APAS President Todd Lewis is concerned with the continuing blockades and the impact it’s having.
“Certainly these blockades have really affected the movement of traffic across the country and certainly in Western Canada. I mean rail was backed up all the way from the coast, way into Saskatchewan and Manitoba. You know it's a very difficult situation, it’s gonna take weeks to untangle and, you know there's a number of boats, over 50 boats, waiting on the West Coast looking for our product.”
He notes, unfortunately, farmers are going to have that demurrage cost passed on to them, something they don’t need and really can’t afford.
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