Canada’s pulse crop exports are seen among the top beneficiaries as the federal government launches talks for an economic partnership agreement with India.
Officials from both countries are expected to meet “in the coming days” to start the negotiating process, the federal government said in a release Friday. “Both sides expect a timely conclusion of an ambitious agreement.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India made their announcement Friday following their appearance at the G20 summit earlier this week in Seoul, South Korea.
Read Also
Senft to step down as CEO of Seeds Canada
Barry Senft, the founding CEO of the five-year-old Seeds Canada organization is stepping down as of January 2026.
A joint Canada/India study group estimated in a report this summer that an economic partnership agreement could increase each country’s overall gross domestic product (GDP) by about C$6 billion and increase two-way bilateral trade by 50 per cent, the government said.
In 2008, Canada’s merchandise exports to India from the “vegetables, fruit and nuts” category — in this case, made up overwhelmingly of pulse crops such as lentils and peas — totalled US$391.1 million, or 17.5 per cent of total exports.
Canada’s exports to India from that category, its second-largest in dollar value, have expanded at a compound growth rate of 27.3 per cent since 1999, the study group noted.
(Canada’s top category of exports to India is “chemical, rubber and plastic products,” accounting for US$743.3 million, or 33.3 per cent of total exports.)
Canadian life sciences and biotech firms “also stand to leverage their expertise in this key market and increase their exports to India,” the government said in Friday’s release.
Other raw Canadian farm exports to India remain scant by comparison, led by oilseeds (US$1.9 million in 2008), cereal grains (US$300,000), milk and dairy (US$200,000), cattle, sheep, goats and horses (US$200,000) and “crops” (US$100,000).
“Significantly under-traded”
“It appears that the India-Canada trade relationship is significantly under-traded,” the joint study group noted in its report, released publicly in Canada in September by International Trade Minister Peter Van Loan.
“For example, total trade between India and Canada is three times smaller than the size of trade between India and Australia, even though the Canadian economy is about 50 per cent larger than that of Australia.”
One farmers’ group, the Grain Growers of Canada, has already weighed in urging all Canadian politicians and parties to back a successful agreement, citing the “huge potential” of India’s market for pulses, grains, oilseeds and Canada’s domestic processing sectors.
“Exports and export prices determine the success of over 90 per cent of Canadian farmers,” Doug Robertson, a Carstairs, Alta. farmer and president of the Ottawa-based GGC, said in its release Friday.
India has nearly 15 per cent of the world’s population, including a middle class demographic of about 250 million people, he said. “This is equivalent in size to the entire United States. And, they have money.”
The GGC noted the “impressive growth” in recent years in India’s economy, with GDP increasing around eight per cent per year from 2003 to 2008 and by 7.2 per cent in 2009–10.
Also, Robertson said, “in addition to creating opportunities for trade through the lowering of tariff lines, we are pleased to see the issue of resolving sanitary and phytosanitary trade barriers on the table.”
Any trade agreement, he said, “is only as strong as your ability to enforce the intent.”
