This past week we’ve seen yet another Saskatchewan agricultural company add value to their product before it leaves the province. The pulses handling company, Superior Pulses in Verwood is expanding its operations next month to start splitting lentils. It will be one of the few companies in Canada with this capacity. We’ve seen other companies in our southern region add similar value to their product. For example, Zak Peas of Fir Mountain not only grows peas but has turned them into a tasty packaged snack right here in Saskatchewan.
This is an historic shift for the province which has been focused on exporting bulk primary products for over a century. The success of these and other companies show that, with a sound business plan, adding value to an agricultural product can be realized. Moreover, consumer tastes are changing domestically. The latest lifestyle trend demands ready-to-eat agri-food products, and locally-produced fresh quality products. The $1 billion in annual farmer’s market sales show no end to this demand.
At the same time, since the first bag of Canadian Red Fife wheat was plonked down on a loading dock in Europe in the late 1880s, our country became the global leader in wheat exports. We also established a reputation for quality agriculture products and marketing stability that continues to this day. With all our abundance of food, Canadians don’t realize that other countries look to Canadian agricultural products to solve their food crises. A relatively few, approximately 6,000, food manufacturers in Canada provide food for the domestic market and export to 190 other countries. Saskatchewan farmers, for the most part, continue to heed the call of its foreign consumers by focusing on exporting bulk agricultural products.
But recently, new foreign trade deals and new domestic consumer demands have altered the way agricultural products are marketed and produced. There is a growing shift to value-added production. For producers, this means more income and for government this adds to the tax base and GDP. Every year, the Canadian agri-food industry markets $55 billion worth of processed products, mostly to the domestic market. Still, the primary agricultural sector employs more people than in processing, yet it makes a smaller contribution to the GDP.
In fact, value-added is nothing new. Saskatchewan farmers on a small scale have been selling direct to consumers and adding value for the last century, selling everything from eggs to butter to vegetables to sausages. Further, statistics show that 75 per cent of the value-added in the food sector is generated by small and medium businesses, including family farms.
Research shows a bright future ahead in processing of bulk agricultural products. But to make a dent in the GDP and add significant job creation, it’s time that big companies in the Prairie provinces join the value-added movement to lead the way in food processing. Already 12 per cent of jobs in Canada are found in agriculture. With large companies involved, this figure is set to rise significantly.
As Saskatchewan producers celebrate Canada 150, reflecting on our past should include a vision of the future that makes room for agri-food processing at a local level. The crop production story does not end with the fall harvest. Simply producing a crop is not enough. Today, marketing and branding of products take centre stage. The package is often more important than the content.
Saskatchewan producers interested in adding value are not alone. The province’s Agriculture Ministry has moved in the right direction by developing a value-added strategy, in place for five years now, to support producers and processors. It has ambitious targets too, to double revenue from the value-added sector by 2020. The recent Farm Progress Show and the fall Agribition showcased this provincial support for innovation, research and development and processing. Let’s hope that the government also includes snipping away some of the red tape that discourages participation of women and youth and the brightest ideas this province can produce.
