ASBG hoping for a Canada-wide sugar policy for members
As beet producers continue to work towards the fall harvest, the Alberta Sugar Beet Growers have been busy advocating for a domestic sugar policy.
In a delegation to the Municipal District of Taber’s July 27 meeting, the ASBG highlighted their work so far this summer and how they’re approaching advocating for a new policy. One focus has been on helping out the economy as people begin to start looking at a post-COVID world.
“(We have been talking about) how us sugar beet growers can help the local, provincial, and the federal economy recover post-COVID. That’s what everybody is talking about these days,” stated Gary Tokariuk, president of the ASBG. “Southern Alberta, as you know, is the only place in Canada that’s growing and refining sugar beets. That adds value across the whole supply chain and our growers want to increase the acres they are growing and we have a ton of new growers that want to join. The desire is there for the increase of acres grown in southern Alberta and probably Canada. The sugar from our beets here in Taber only accounts for 10 per cent, at the most, of Canadian use, which is 1.2 million tons of sugar. The rest is raw cane that is brought in from countries like Brazil, Guatemala, and Vietnam. That serves only the refiners in a profit margin area and the farmers in these smaller countries. It’s not contributing much to Canada as a whole.”
Tokariuk said the Canada-United StatesMexico Agreement (CUSMA) trade agreement has had impact.
“Right now, through CUSMA, we have an allotment of 20,000 tons that we are allowed to ship in the USA under the TRQ. This is the only freetrade agreement that gives preferential treatment sugar beet sugar, so it has to be filled by our sugar out of this plant here. As you guys know, the industry in southern Alberta contributes over 2,000 jobs and has a GDP contribution of close to $250 million. It may not seem high when you list other crops, but we’re only 28,000 acres. As a small number of acres, we are very high valued crop,” continued Tokariuk. “Over the last two years, and this started because of the desire from Canadians to know where their food comes from, how it’s grown, is it ethically grown, and is it grown in Canada — so we have obtained this Farm Sustainable Assessment Verification, which is a silver level.”
Wanting to grow more acres in southern Alberta, the ASBG explained how that isn’t feasible at this current time because of the local processing facility. But with ag continuing to be looked at as an economic driver, it was highlighted how sugar beet growers can help be a solution.
“Our growers want to grow more acres — it’s how we get them there right? We are limited currently by the fact our processing facility has got only so much capacity and we’re the only one in Canada. But the pandemic has brought to light an impetus and an opportunity for us to push an agenda that we thought was maybe a few years away,” explained Melody Garner-Skiba, executive director. “We’d like to seize the moment and everybody is talking about how Alberta needs to get off of the oil and gas roller coaster. Minister (Marie-Claude) Bibeau said that agriculture needs to play a major role in our economic recovery.”
The pandemic highlighted the need for more Canadian products on shelves.
“That includes increasing food security. I don’t know if you saw during the pandemic, but there were grocery stores in urban centres where there was no sugar left on the shelves because of the home baking movement. More and more people were going home, they were baking and cooking and they needed more sugar. So, the only way they could do it at that point was to import more raw cane,” said Garner-Skiba. “Climate change, of course, has become a hotter topic in how can agriculture reduce our impact on greenhouse gases and what can we do? Our sustainability verification Gary noted is one step of that, but when we look more globally at climate change, and specifically sugar production, and you compare what our farmers in southern Alberta are doing here compared to Guatemala and Vietnam, doesn’t matter whether you’re looking at if from an environmental standpoint or a labour standpoint, we’re heads and tails above. We just produce a product in a more ethical and sustainable manner. Canadians, with the pandemic, really started to look more closely at that, so we’ve got this wave of Canadians wanting more food that is produced and refined here in Canada. They want food that is produced in a sustainable and ethical manner and when we look at that, we kind of tick those boxes."