Medium Term Outlook for Canadian Agriculture International and Domestic Markets

The purpose of this document is to describe the features of the MTO covering the period 2010 to 2020. The MTO is a plausible future for the international and domestic agri-food sectors based on current policies in Canada and other countries as of Fall 2010. It serves as a benchmark for discussion and scenario analysis. The outlook makes specific assumptions and outlines their implications. Since it assumes that policies remain unchanged from existing legislation, the outlook is not a forecast of future events. In particular there are no assumptions made regarding the outcome of the Doha round of trade negotiations. It also assumes no impact from climate change and from policy to mitigate climate change nor significant animal disease outbreaks or unusual climatic conditions over the period of the outlook. The starting point of the MTO is world agricultural commodities price projection based on the OECD/FAO Agricultural Outlook for 2009/2019 adjusted with more recent information. The Canadian macro-economic forecasts are from the Conference Board of Canada outlook published in September 2010. In addition, short-term price forecasts have been updated using United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) projections released in October 2010. For example, droughts in some southern hemisphere countries and China as well as the foot and mouth outbreak in South Korea have not been taken into account.