Agriculture

Intensive agriculture turned a wild plant into a pervasive weed, study finds

lanthierj — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 22:52:36 +0000

Intensive agriculture turned a wild plant into a pervasive weed, study finds

lanthierj Tue, 12/13/2022 - 17:52

Cutline

Lead author Julia Kreiner performing DNA extractions of historical herbarium samples in the ancient DNA lab in Tuebingen, Germany (all photos courtesy Julia Kreiner/University of British Columbia)

Faculty of Arts & Science Staff

Topic

Breaking Research

Agriculture

Collaboration

Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Faculty of Arts & Science

Research & Innovation

New research published in Science shows how the rise of modern agriculture turned a North American native plant, common waterhemp, into a problematic agricultural weed.

An international team led by researchers at the University of British Columbia with colleagues at the 91�Թ�, compared 187 waterhemp samples from modern farms and neighbouring wetlands with more than 100 historical samples dating as far back as 1820 that had been stored in museums across North America.

Much like the sequencing of ancient human and neanderthal remains has resolved key mysteries about human history, studying the plant’s genetic makeup over the last two centuries allowed the researchers to watch evolution in action across changing environments.

“The genetic variants that help the plant do well in modern agricultural settings have risen to high frequencies remarkably quickly since agricultural intensification in the 1960s,” said study lead author Julia Kreiner. A postdoctoral researcher in UBC’s department of botany, Kreiner completed her PhD at 91�Թ� with study co-authors John Stinchcombe and Stephen Wright, both professors in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology in the Faculty of Arts & Science at 91�Թ�.

Waterhemp occurring in natural habitats, the sandy merging of a lake in southern Illinois.

The researchers discovered hundreds of genes across the weed’s genome that aid its success on farms, with mutations in genes related to drought tolerance, rapid growth and resistance to herbicides appearing frequently.

“The types of changes we’re imposing in agricultural environments are so strong that they have consequences in neighbouring habitats that we’d usually think were natural,” said Kreiner.

The findings could inform conservation efforts to preserve natural areas in landscapes dominated by agriculture. Reducing gene flow out of agricultural sites and choosing more isolated natural populations for protection could help limit the evolutionary influence of farms.

A 155-year-old waterhemp herbarium specimen from the Missouri Botanical Garden Herbarium

Common waterhemp is native to North America and was not always a problematic plant. Yet in recent years, the weed has become nearly impossible to eradicate from farms thanks to genetic adaptations including herbicide resistance.

Notably, five out of seven herbicide-resistant mutations found in current samples were absent from the historical samples. “Modern farms impose a strong filter determining which plant species and mutations can persist through time,” said Kreiner. “Sequencing the plant’s genes, herbicides stood out as one of the strongest agricultural filters determining which plants survive and which die.”

Waterhemp carrying any of the seven herbicide resistant mutations have produced an average of 1.2 times as many surviving offspring per year since 1960 compared to plants that don’t have the mutations.

Herbicide resistant mutations were also discovered in natural habitats, albeit at a lower frequency, which raises questions about the costs of these adaptations for plant life in non-agricultural settings.

“In the absence of herbicide applications, being resistant can actually be costly to a plant, so the changes happening on the farms are impacting the fitness of the plant in the wild,” said Kreiner.

“While waterhemp typically grows near lakes and streams, the genetic shifts that we’re seeing allow the plant to survive on drier land and to grow quickly to outcompete crops,” said co-author Sarah Otto, Killam University Professor at UBC. “Waterhemp has basically evolved to become more of a weed given how strongly it’s been selected to thrive alongside human agricultural activities.”

Agricultural practices have also reshaped where the weedy variety of common waterhemp can be found to grow on the North American continent. Over the last 60 years, a weedy southwestern variety has made an increasing progression eastward, spreading their genes into local populations as a result of their competitive edge in agricultural contexts.

Waterhemp can drastically reduce corn and soy yields, as seen on the right in a corn field in Essex County, Ontario

“Understanding the fate of these variants and how they affect plants in non-farm, ‘wild’ populations is an important next step for our work,” says Stinchcombe.

The researchers also plan to delve further into their discoveries on the rate of plant evolution over different geographic and temporal scales, with the hope of uncovering how variation in land-use across changing landscape influences the evolution of native plants.

“These results highlight the enormous potential of studying historical genomes to understand plant adaptation on short timescales,” says Wright. “Expanding this research across scales and species will broaden our understanding of how farming and climate change are driving rapid plant evolution.”

Broadly speaking, the researchers say the findings mean greater consideration of the impact of farming practices on native plants is needed.

“On one hand, preserving natural areas within agricultural landscapes provides an important ecological service,” says Kreiner. “On the other hand, these natural populations will become quite genetically different from what they would have looked like in the absence of agriculture. How well these plants will be able to persist in their native habitats remains a mystery.”

With files from the University of British Columbia

Biologists at 91�Թ� open new front in crop infection battle

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 25 Feb 2020 15:03:13 +0000

Biologists at 91�Թ� open new front in crop infection battle

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 02/25/2020 - 10:03

Cutline

Based on new insights into the way plants survive relentless pathogen attacks, researchers at 91�Թ� have developed a blueprint that could one day be used to protect the health of the world's food crops (photo by imazoran via iStock)

Sean Bettam

Topic

Breaking Research

Cell and Systems Biology

Agriculture

Faculty of Arts & Science

Research & Innovation

A team of researchers at the 91�Թ� has successfully tested a new strategy to identify genetic resources in the ongoing battle against plant pathogens such as bacteria, fungi and viruses, which infect and destroy food crops worldwide.

“As much as 40 per cent of global crop yield is lost to pests and pathogens such as bacteria, viruses and other disease-causing microorganisms annually,” said David Guttman, a professor in the department of cell and systems biology at the 91�Թ� and co-author of a study recently published in the journal Science.

“In Canada, pathogens of the top five crops cause annual losses of approximately $3.2 billion, even with no significant outbreaks.”

By focusing on the near-limitless arsenal of disease-associated genes available to pathogens and the defences available to plants, the researchers not only uncovered new insights into the ways plants survive relentless attacks, they developed a blueprint that could one day be used to protect the health of any species grown for food production.

“We wanted to know how relatively long-lived plants defend themselves against very rapidly evolving disease-causing pathogens, why disease is so uncommon even while plants are under continual attack by these highly diverse pathogens and why domesticated crop species are so much more susceptible to pathogen attacks than wild species,” Guttman said.

Guttman and Darrell Desveaux, a fellow cell and systems biology professor who co-led the study, addressed these questions by specifically asking how a single plant is able to fight off the attacks of a common, bacterial, crop pathogen. They did this by first characterizing the global diversity of an important class of pathogen proteins, called effectors.

“Effectors play key roles in disease since they evolved to enhance the ability of pathogens to attack and infect their hosts. Fortunately, plants have evolved counter-defences in the form of immune receptors that can recognize certain effectors,” said Desveaux.

“A plant is able to mount an ‘effector-triggered’ immune response that usually stops the infection if it carries a specific immune receptor that recognizes a specific pathogen effector. This effector-receptor interaction has been called gene-for-gene resistance and is the basis for nearly all agricultural resistance breeding.”

Specimens of Arabidopsis thaliana plants: healthy and bacteria-resistant (green), infected and susceptible to disease (grey). Researchers infected healthy specimens and measured abilities to fend off pathogen attacks (photo by Bradley Laflamme)

The team started by sequencing the genomes of approximately 500 strains of the bacteria Pseudomonas syringae (P. syringae), which causes disease on nearly every major crop species.

“From these bacterial genomes we identified approximately 15,000 effectors from 70 distinct families,” said Guttman. “We then reduced this complexity by identifying 530 effectors that represent their global diversity.”

The researchers next had all of these representative effectors synthesized and put into a particularly harmful strain of P. syringae that causes disease when infecting the plant Arabidopsis thaliana (A. thaliana), a common weed widely used in plant biology studies. By doing infections with each individual effector they saw how many of the 530 effectors elicited an effector-triggered immune response that protected the plant.

The results were unexpected.

“We found that over 11 per cent of the effectors elicited immune response and that almost 97 per cent of all P. syringae strains carry at least one immune-eliciting effector,” said Desveaux. “We also identified new plant immune receptors that recognize these effectors and found that almost 95 per cent of all P. syringae strains can be blocked by just two A. thaliana immune receptors.”

The results shed new light on how plants survive relentless pathogen attack. They also offer a new approach for identifying new plant immune receptors, which is a genetic resource in short supply in agricultural breeding.

“While wild plant species have a diverse array of immune receptors, most domesticated crop species have lost much of this immunodiversity due to intensive artificial selection,” said Guttman. “Our approach enables the rapid identification of new immune receptors in wild relatives of crops that can then be moved into elite agricultural lines by traditional breeding, ultimately creating new varieties with greater ability to resist agricultural pathogens.”

Funding for the research was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chairs program.

The future of meat is shifting to plant-based products: 91�Թ� expert

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 17 Jun 2019 13:21:55 +0000

The future of meat is shifting to plant-based products: 91�Թ� expert

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 06/17/2019 - 09:21

Cutline

Demand is hot for plant-based food options like the lentil-based veggie burger seen here (photo by Shutterstock)

Topic

Rotman School of Management

91�Թ� Mississauga

With summer just around the corner, it’s not just the weather heating up in Canada. The plant-based foods sector is also starting to sizzle.

Consumers are increasingly following the advice of the new Canada Food Guide, which highlights the nutritional benefits of protein sources like nuts, beans, legumes, pulses and tofu in place of meat, eggs, fish and dairy products. And these eating habits are expected to stick, with a recent report anticipating that up to 60 per cent of “meat” may come from non-animal sources by the year 2040.

Consistent with these shifts in consumer preferences, plant-based meat company Beyond Meat recently saw its stock price surge almost 40 per cent, after its first performance report as a publicly traded company revealed far better-than-expected sales.

This is the same company that also enjoyed one of the hottest initial public offerings of the year, rising more than 150 per cent on its first day of trading earlier this year. Overall, the stock’s price is up about 400 per cent since its debut.

Restaurants, grocers offer plant-based foods

Adapting to shifting consumer preferences, several Canadian restaurant chains have introduced plant-based items to their traditionally meat-laden menus. When A&W Canada launched the Beyond Meat Burger last fall, restaurants across the country sold out within days and took months to restock sufficient supplies to ensure a smooth relaunch.

Tim Hortons now sells vegan breakfast sausages, Quesada introduced tacos made with veggie meat and Earl’s has launched its own Beyond Burger as well as a new vegan menu.

Canadian grocery stores are now stocking Beyond Meat, and some are developing their own in-house options (photo by Shutterstock)

Canadian grocery stores are also catering to consumers’ predilection for plant-based meats. Last month, mainstream supermarkets across the country began carrying the Beyond Burger, with some opting to place the product not in the health food aisles but instead in the butcher section alongside steaks and ribs.

And some retailers have additionally developed their own in-house varieties of plant-based foods, including the President’s Choice selection of veggie burgers, chicken-less fingers and beef-free crumble. Furthermore, shoppers now face an embarrassment of riches in the dairy section, with anyone seeking to avoid cow’s milk enjoying a choice of beverages made from soy, almond, coconut and oat.

These developments are indicative of a sea change in the market for vegan foods, with demand coming not just from vegetarians. Meat eaters, too, are drawn by the lower health risks associated with non-animal sourced proteins, a desire to reduce the environmental impact of their food choices and concerns about animal welfare.

A backlash

But some industry groups are attempting to push back against the plant-based food movement. In January, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency received a complaint about non-dairy products “being labelled as ‘cheese’ when they are allegedly not.”

A cheese by any other name would taste as cheesy? Tofu feta is on the offer in this photo (photo by Shutterstock)

Likewise, the Quebec Cattle Producers Federation recently expressed concern that calling veggie burgers “plant-based meat” is misleading to consumers, noting that the regulatory definition of meat is “the carcass of a food animal, the blood of a food animal, or a product or by-product of its carcass.” Yum?

But studies support the view that consumers are not the least bit confused by the use of monikers such as “milk” or “meat” in reference to plant-based foods. This makes sense, given the products’ labels tend to feature prominent information about their origins. And so prudent producers and retailers are preparing for the future by catering to consumer preferences for these foods rather than fixating on the past.

An important lesson emerges from another industry that faced a major shift in consumer demand. When digital photography was emerging as a new technology, a then-leader of the photography sector, Kodak, faced a difficult choice.

The company could cannibalize its own camera film sales to become an early leader in the digital space, which would be painful but potentially lucrative. Or it could try to postpone the inevitable and cling to a fading technology. Kodak chose the latter path, and the competition ate their lunch.

Now tech companies like Panasonic, Sony and Samsung stand alongside Canon and Nikon to dominate the world of digital photography, leaving Kodak a mere shadow of its former self.

Forward-looking meat-producing companies must reframe their thinking to recognize that they are in the protein production business. With many consumers avoiding animal-sourced protein, the opportunity emerges to shift focus to developing and producing alternate types of food.

Adapting to the future

The federal government stands ready to facilitate such changes, recently introducing more than $150 million in funding for the Proteins Industry Canada “supercluster,” aiming to encourage farmers and entrepreneurs in the Prairies to use new technology to increase the value of Canadian crops such as canola, wheat and pulses.

Another reason such a shift makes sense is the fact that raising animals as food is expensive. To produce a pound of animal-based protein requires many more pounds of crops and litres of water than are needed to produce a pound of plant-based protein.

With a surge in demand for commodities like peas, which are a key ingredient in products like the Beyond Burger, savvy Canadian farmers and producers are pivoting to adapt. Industry giant Maple Leaf Foods, for one, recently announced an investment of US$310 million to expand their plant-based offerings.

With all of these changes, investors in companies that are in the business of producing plant-based food stand to be winners, as does anyone who aims to enjoy the taste and texture of meat without the downsides of conventional meat.

Lisa Kramer is a professor of finance at the 91�Թ�.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

91�Թ� Scarborough explores how urban agriculture intersects with social justice

ullahnor — Tue, 21 Mar 2017 21:24:56 +0000

91�Թ� Scarborough explores how urban agriculture intersects with social justice

ullahnor Tue, 03/21/2017 - 17:24

Cutline

A summit hosted at 91�Թ� Scarborough this month looked at urban agriculture and the role of community gardens in Toronto (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

Author legacy

Don Campbell

Topic

As Toronto continues to grow, urban agriculture may play a more significant role for people seeking alternative sources of nutritious and affordable food, 91�Թ� researcher Colleen Hammelman says.

Hammelman has examined urban agriculture in such cities as Medellín, Colombia, and Washington, D.C. She explored the role of urban agriculture in the GTA and social justice at a one-day conference organized at 91�Թ� Scarborough this month.

“Urban agriculture brings a lot of value to a city, especially in terms of sustainability, but a key element is how social justice also fits into the conversation,” says Hammelman.

While urban agriculture is widely practiced in many respects, it’s also misunderstood, particularly the important role it plays in migrant communities both culturally and nutritionally, notes Hammelman, who is a post-doc researcher at 91�Թ� Scarborough's Culinaria Research Centre.

From her experience, urban agriculture not only supplements food budgets by giving access to fresh food many can’t afford, but it also provides “spaces of community resilience” where residents can come together for a common purpose.

“Community gardens also provide important avenues of support for new Canadians,” she adds.

The conference featured a variety of speakers including Kristin Reynolds, author of Beyond the Kale, and Toronto Councillor Mary Fragedakis, along with members of various community organizations like Black Creek Community Farm, Toronto Urban Growers and AccessPoint Alliance. Undergraduate and graduate geography students also had a chance to meet with participants to talk about how social justice fits into the conversation around the urban agriculture movement.

There are about 200 spaces ranging in size that are designated for community gardens across Toronto where people can grow food.

“It’s an active and growing movement in the city, but there are challenges in trying to expand,” says Hammelman, pointing to resources needed for starting up a garden and finding adequate spaces and clean soil, which is no easy feat given Toronto’s industrial past.

She pointed to work being done by Malvern Action for Neighbourhood Change in supporting three community gardens and collaborating with other organizations for a project that will establish market farms in Hydro corridors as microenterprises. The work being done there in creating community gardens focuses a lot on addressing some of the food security issues in Malvern.

Hammelman sees the university playing a role in working together with community partners to help navigate some of the challenges involved in establishing opportunities for urban agriculture.

“There’s work to be done on making sure people growing food in community gardens can be adequately compensated for their labour, but also ensuring that the food being grown is still affordable for those who need it,” she says.

Indoor farming takes root at 91�Թ� Mississauga

ullahnor — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 22:07:22 +0000

Indoor farming takes root at 91�Թ� Mississauga

ullahnor Thu, 03/09/2017 - 17:07

Cutline

Student startup, Just Vertical, is growing an indoor farm wall hydroponically at 91�Թ� Mississauga – with nutrient solution, instead of soil (photo by Sarah Jane Silva)

Sarah Jane Silva

Author legacy

Sarah Jane Silva

Topic

At 91�Թ� Mississauga, a plastic tower sprouts produce including curly starbor kale, buttercrunch and collard greens.

Rising almost six feet off the ground and illuminated by high output fluorescent bulbs, the indoor farm wall grows plants hydroponically – with nutrient solution, instead of soil. The water nourishes the roots, collects in a gutter and then recirculates back to a nutrient tank that feeds back into the hydroponic system.

The farm wall was the idea of Master of Science in Sustainability Management (MScSM) students Conner Tidd and Kevin Jakiela who partnered with Modular Farms Co., which specializes in vertical farming systems, to create distribution channels and services.

“You can grow pretty much anything,” Jakiela says. “Here, we’ve already grown three different types of lettuce, Genovese basil, joi choi, peppermint and parsley.”

From seed to harvest, it takes about four weeks to grow leafy greens and herbs.

“If you stagger it correctly, you can harvest it almost every day,” Tidd adds.

The wall costs just under $25 a month in electricity.

The seedlings, nestled in plugs made of peat moss, begin in a tray and are placed under a humidity dome where they germinate and are fed different levels of nutrients and pH. After a couple of weeks, they're ready to be transplanted into the tower.

Wicking strips help water find the path of least resistance by controlling the water flow and taking the water directly to the seedling roots.

“It’s a white cloth that you open up, put the plug in, then you close it like a sandwich, and put it into the tower,” Jakiela says.

Although the produce the farm wall yields is not organic-certified yet, the students' startup company, Just Vertical, uses organic-based practices, foregoing herbicides and pesticides.

“When you’re outside, you’re exposed to pests and fungi,” Tidd says. “Unless you’re using herbicides and pesticides, it’s going to be a problem especially when you’re growing strawberries and tomatoes.”

“With Just Vertical, Kevin and Conner have a great product in place, and manufacturing is lined up so now the initial focus will be on market validation,” says Sam Dumcum, the programs, strategic relationships and innovation lead at ICUBE, 91�Թ� Mississauga's incubator that provides startup support to new ventures at any stage.

Dumcum says that by focusing on market research during the next phase of their startup, Just Vertical will be able to have a solid base with which to advertise and sell their product but also to appeal to investors.

Rice crops that can save farmers money and cut pollution: new research from 91�Թ�

lanthierj — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 15:22:46 +0000

Rice crops that can save farmers money and cut pollution: new research from 91�Թ�

lanthierj Fri, 07/22/2016 - 11:22

Cutline

Professor Herbert Kronzucker (at left) with grad student Ahmed Hamam (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

Author legacy

Don Campbell

Topic

Subheadline

“If we can produce more responsible plants that don’t waste fertilizer needlessly, everyone wins”

A new 91�Թ� study has identified “superstar” varieties of rice that can reduce fertilizer loss and cut down on environmental pollution in the process.

The study, authored by 91�Թ� Scarborough Professor Herbert Kronzucker in collaboration with a team at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, looked at 19 varieties of rice to see which ones were more efficient at using nitrogen.

“We have this bucolic idea of agriculture – animals grazing or vast fields of majestic crops – but the global reality is it’s one of the biggest drivers of environmental pollution and climate change,” says Kronzucker.

Nitrogen, when applied as fertilizer, is taken up inefficiently by most crops. In tropical rice fields, as much as 50 to 70 per cent can be lost. The problem is that excess nitrogen negatively affects water quality by contaminating nearby watersheds or leaching into ground water. It’s also a significant source of gases such as ammonia and nitrogen oxide, which are not only harmful to aquatic life but also a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions.

While nitrogen is one of three main nutrients required for crops to grow, it also costs the most to produce, adds Kronzucker.

“Anything we can do to reduce demand for nitrogen, both environmentally and for farmers in the developing world struggling to pay for it, is a significant contribution.”

Kronzucker’s study for the first time identifies a novel class of chemicals produced and released by the roots of rice crops that directly influence the metabolism of soil microbes. They found that key microbial reactions that lead to an inefficiency in nitrogen capture can be significantly reduced in certain varieties of rice plants through the action of those specific chemicals released from root cells.

One of the main reasons crops waste so much fertilizer is that they were bred that way. In the past fertilizers were relatively inexpensive to produce because fossil fuels were abundant and cheap. As a result, plant geneticists bred crops that responded to high fertilizer use regardless of how efficient they were at using nitrogen.

“These inefficiencies used to be of little interest, but now, with fluctuating fuel prices and growing concerns over climate change, it’s a much bigger issue,” says Kronzucker, who is the director of the Canadian Centre for World Hunger Research at 91�Թ� Scarborough.

There are more than 120,000 varieties of rice stored at the germplasm bank at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, but Kronzucker’s team only focused on varieties that met important criteria. For one they concentrated only on Japonica (the rice used in sushi) and Indica, the world’s most popular rice type commonly grown in China, India and Southeast Asia. The varieties also had to be currently grown by farmers, have a high yield potential, be disease and pest-resistant, grow to the right size and have strong enough roots to withstand monsoon-force winds.

“They had to be proven in the field as viable options. It’s not practical if a rice farmer isn’t going to touch it,” adds Kronzucker.

The hope is for this study to inform rice-growing strategies throughout Asia. One option could be to provide farmers with government incentives like tax credits, to switch to a more nitrogen-friendly variety. Another outcome could be better breeding programs where even better species of crops can be produced.

“There’s no reason a crop can’t result in less pollution while also saving farmers money; the two aren’t incompatible,” says Kronzucker. “If we can produce more responsible plants that don’t waste fertilizer needlessly, everyone wins.”

The Trans-Pacific Partnership explained

sgupta — Wed, 07 Oct 2015 10:42:57 +0000

The Trans-Pacific Partnership explained sgupta Wed, 10/07/2015 - 06:42

Cutline

“In the less than two weeks left in the election campaign it is impossible to work out how much help Canadian industries affected by TPP will need, and receive,” Robert Bothwell says (image by Chapendra via Flickr)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

More News

Trade

International Relations

Government

Faculty of Arts & Science

Agriculture

Canada and 11 other countries signed the Trans-Pacific Partnership this week but it’s unclear how much Canadians knew or understood about the deal.

The agreement lowers tariffs for those inside the trading bloc – covering about 40 per cent of the world’s gross domestic product. Each country still needs to vote on the deal, the details of which have yet to emerge.

Canadian dairy farmers and auto workers have been vocal in fighting against it.

91�Թ� News writer Noreen Ahmed-Ullah asked international relations Professor Robert Bothwell and PhD candidate Tina Park to weigh in on what we know so far about the agreement.

How did Canada fare with the Trans-Pacific Partnership?

Robert Bothwell: On trade policy, the government admittedly has a tough situation. Canada relies on exports and has an obvious interest in opening as many markets as possible. In return, of course, Canada must open its own.

Although arguments for trade pacts are usually put in glowing, positive terms, the best arguments are in fact negative – what would be the consequences if Canada were left out? That was the case in the eighties, with US free trade, in the nineties, with NAFTA, and today, with the just-concluded TPP.

In the first two cases, and I believe also in the third, there were (and will be) some companies, and some industries, that will fare poorly. So, of course, will the Canadians employed in those industries. But with the Americans driving the negotiations on TPP it is hard to see how Canada could do anything but follow along.

Will Canada, on balance, do better out of the TPP? There are loud affirmative sounds from the government, but really these should be taken as statements of faith. In the less than two weeks left in the election campaign it is impossible to work out how much help Canadian industries affected by TPP will need, and receive. For example, will the government buy out Canada's dairy farmers, or pension them when or if their farms go out of business? The Harper government has a deserved reputation for flying by the seat of its pants when it comes to costing its promises; and it is even less reliable when it comes to implementing them.

Tina Park: The Trans-Pacific Partnership is an enormous achievement, covering 40 percent of the global economy ($28 trillion), with a combined population of 800 million people. Coupled with the Canada-Korea Free Trade Agreement, and the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement with the EU, Canada will gain preferential access covering 90 percent of our exports. The 12 countries of TPP are expected to grow even larger and account for 50 percent of global GDP by 2050. TPP is arguably the largest free trade deal in the world, with so much room for competition and growth.

A lot has been said in the media on what Canada might lose, particularly dairy and auto parts. We should remember that the final text for the TPP won’t be public for some weeks, and no one in the public knows much about the full implications of TPP yet. We have two years for all signatories to approve the deal, which will give plenty of time for debate, discussion, and parliamentary approval. The 2.5 percent allowance for dairy imports is very moderate and Ottawa will be spending $4.3-billion over 15 years to compensate dairy, chicken and egg farmers.

Provinces will also have a role in ratification, especially on pharmaceutical, environmental and labour issues. Increased market access will increase our competitiveness and productivity, which in turn will lead to higher GDP and higher incomes to Canadians.

In the globalized world we live in today, TPP has much to offer for advancing Canadian national interests and it will be up to Canadian businesses to be innovative and actively seize the opportunity.

picpath

sites/default/files/2015-10-07-TPP-cow.jpg