Agricultural innovations can address many of the world's most pressing problems. Growers in Canada and around the world are facing increasing challenges including pest pressures, climate change and global uncertainty. They need access to tools, including plant breeding innovations and pesticides, to grow more high-quality food to meet rising global demands while limiting agricultural impact on the environment. And they need fair, rules-based trade to access the global marketplace. Global leaders are turning their attention to the urgent issue of productivity and recognizing agriculture as a solutions provider. 

At a recent B20 meeting in Brazil, the Sustainable Food Systems & Agriculture Task Force set out a series of recommendations to support climate resilience and farmer productivity. This task force brought together business leaders from the G20 countries representing the agricultural value chain and its recommendations were brought forward to the G20 Agricultural Working Group, which will inform G20 meetings in November 2024.

The recommendations of the task force focused on innovation and trade as solutions to food security and economic prosperity. They highlighted the need to enhance productivity growth by fostering scalable and science-based innovation and promoting a more equitable sustainable productivity growth cycle. 

They also noted the need for continued support of the WTO’s rules-based multilateral agricultural trade system and the elimination of market distorting barriers through the support of actionable and science-based rules.

The G20 Agriculture Working Group Ministerial Declaration reflected the recommendations from the B20 meetings with a focus on: 

• -  The critical role of production and productivity in food system transformation;
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• -  The recognition that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to the complex challenges facing farmers and our food system;
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• -  The support for targeted policies that focus upon outcomes-driven, sustainable and innovative solutions rooted in science and adapted to local contexts;
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• -  The role of international trade in food security, with the WTO’s rules-based multilateral trading system at its core; and
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• -  The need for concrete steps to be taken to ensure trade flow in agricultural and food products.

We are pleased to see global leaders acknowledge the importance of agricultural innovation to advance productivity, which supports sustainability in global food systems. Too often ideology stands in the way of progress when it comes to agriculture. This recognition from global leaders about the need for innovation to drive productivity removes ideology from the equation and focuses us on solutions for problems that need urgent action. 

Horticulture growers are on the front lines when it comes to adapting to changing climate conditions and facing new and changing pest pressures. Maintaining and indeed raising productivity simply does not happen if growers do not have access to a whole toolbox of innovations to draw from. Whether it is traditional crop protection tools, biologicals, seed innovation or precision application technology, there is a clear recognition from global leaders that we need to take science-based approaches to add more tools to the toolbox rather than restricting access to critical innovations, which can too often be the case when politics and ideology come into play.

Canadian farmers are poised and ready to sustainably grow more food for both Canadians and those around the world that need it. But we need a regulatory environment that enables innovation and we need global adherence to rules-based trading systems that allow Canadian-grown food to get to global markets. This is a timely reminder for Canada about the need to elevate the profile of agriculture as a solutions provider and to do everything it can unleash the full potential of the industry. 

Our global food systems are a remarkable achievement. In the last six decades, crop productivity has soared by 138 per cent using only 15 per cent more land, while the world population more than doubled. But we cannot rest on our past achievements. We have seen a stagnation of productivity gains in global agriculture, including here in Canada, in recent decades. There is an urgent need to embrace innovation to help reverse that trend if we are going to meet the food and feed needs of the world while confronting climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.