Far-flung food: local food falls victim to a fixation on food exports

The local food movement is important—a grassroots force for positive change.  People are increasingly aware of the benefits of eating local food and more are demanding it.  That said, it would be wrong to think that we are localizing our food system.  Just the opposite.  The most powerful players are putting their money and influence behind the project of globalizing and de-localizing our food supply.  Our food has never been less local.

In early-April, Canada’s federal government announced an ambitious new target for higher agri-food exports: $75 billion by 2025.  Unfortunately, as exports increase, so will imports.   We’re maximizing food miles.

The graph above shows Canadian agri-food exports and imports.  The units are billions of dollars, adjusted for inflation.  The graph covers 1970 to 2015.  A round circle highlights 1989, which marks the beginning of the modern “free trade” period.  In 1989, we implemented the historic Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUSTA).  Not long after, we implemented the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture.  Other agreements have followed.

Since ’89, Canada has been very successful in finding export markets for Canadian grains, meat, processed foods, and other agri-food products.  Exports have more than tripled.  This is no chance occurrence.  Governments and industry have worked together to drive up exports—repeatedly setting and meeting ever-higher targets.  In 1993, for example, federal and provincial governments pledged to double agri-food exports to $20 billion by 2000. Next, they pledged to double exports again: to $40 billion by 2005.  (This latter goal was actually suggested by the Canadian Agri-Food Marketing Council, an industry group that included representatives of Cargill, Maple Leaf, and McCains.)  Just last year, the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance—whose members include some of the world’s largest agricultural traders and processors—voiced strong support for new trade agreements: the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).  To support of this industry-led effort, the federal government has now pledged to help increase exports to $75 billion.  While many citizens want local food, governments and agribusiness appear to want the opposite.

The trade agreements that pave the way for Canadian exports do the same for imports.  Since 1989, Canadian food imports have more than tripled, to nearly $45 billion per year.  With each uptick in exports comes a comparable increase in imports.  If we reach our 2025 goal of $75 billion in exports, the trendlines in the graph above suggest that imports will rise to about $65 billion per year—on average, about $8,000 for a hypothetical family of four.  That’s a lot of imported food. Especially in a food-rich nation such as Canada.

The preceding is not an argument against exports and trade, or even against food imports.  But it is an argument against a simplistic fixation on exports.  While exports have doubled and redoubled, farmers’ net incomes have stagnated or fallen, the number of Canadian farms has been reduced by a third, farm debt has quadrupled, many Canadian processing companies have disappeared, and our agricultural and food systems have become increasingly controlled by foreign corporations.  Good agricultural policy must go far beyond a push to produce and export.  And a sound national food policy must go far, far beyond such simplistic schemes.

Graph sources: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC): “Agri-food Export Potential for the year 2000;” and data from AAFC by request.