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Agriculture Roundup for Wednesday November 17, 2021

Nov 17, 2021 | 11:22 AM

MELFORT, Sask. – Federal Agriculture and Agri-Food Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau is in Regina, Sask. this afternoon to make a pulse crop industry announcement.

Bibeau and representatives from the pulse and special crops sectors will be at a news conference at 1 p.m. at AGT Foods and Ingredients.

Bibeau also said she will also be meeting with agriculture officials this week.

“In my first major outreach since being re-appointed as Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, I am excited to be setting out on an important tour to meet with and listen to farmers, food processors, industry leaders and my provincial counterparts in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba,” Bibeau said in a news release.

Bibeau said she will be highlighting support programs to help prairie ranchers and farmers bounce back from the drought.

Canada is launching free-trade talks with a major group of southeast Asian countries as it seeks to diversify from China and find new ways of coping with a snarled global supply chain.

International Trade Minister Mary Ng announced the opening of formal trade talks with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations after meeting with the representative of that ten country group.

She said the government wants to open new markets for Canadian companies in an economy of 600 million people.

Ng called the talks a significant milestone in deepening Canada’s economic relations with the Indo-Pacific region as the world copes with the supply-chain bottlenecks that have emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Canada already has preferred access to Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam through the trade group known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership.

A deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations would open market access to three other large markets in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

After four years of planning and construction Roquette’s $600-million pea protein plant near Portage la Prairie, Man. will be officially opened.

Roughly 125,000 metric tonnes of organic and conventional yellow peas will be processed from growers across Western Canada each year.

Since the project broke ground in 2017, Portage la Prairie has seen a massive economic boost and the addition of roughly 20 new families who have permanently moved to the community.

The plant is expected to reach full capacity early next year.

alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

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