Welcome to the 11th Year of SAIFood Blogs!

My team and I take July and August off from writing blogs to reduce the weekly time demands, allow everyone to take some well deserved holidays, and to recharge for the start of the fall term. It’s often the case that things are a bit slower in the summer and there are fewer issues to focus on. Not so this summer!

Agricultural policy issues have been dominant news stories for most of the summer. Trade and tariff issues with the USA have consistently been the focus of all Canadian media, which also includes the extent to which supply management of dairy, egg, and poultry production will affect the Canada-US discussions. China’s implementation of a temporary 75.8% tariff on canola seed imports on August 12 was a further political response to the 100% tariffs imposed by Canada in the summer of 2024 on the import of Chinese produced electric vehicles. This new tariff is in addition to the 100% tariff applied to imports of Canadian canola oil and meal and a 25% tariff on pork and seafood on March 21.

At times, the Canadian mainstream media can overlook crucial issues for agriculture, but that isn’t the case this summer. I would normally do a handful of interviews over the months of July and August. At the point of writing this in late August, I’ve already participated in 40 interviews on these topics. It’s refreshing to see media focusing on priority issues for agriculture.

My team and I are looking forward to getting back to producing blogs on a variety of topics. This marks the 11^th academic year that we have been publishing SAIFood blogs, with the first published in February 2015. I am adding new members to my research team and their content will be appearing shortly.

Students will be returning to classes, some for their first year, with others their final year. I want to wish all the students a successful term. I look forward to meeting those in my classes and having some interesting conversations.

I’d also like to wish a safe and bountiful harvest to all the farmers. Weather doesn’t always cooperate the way one hopes, making for additional challenges. This winter, I will be speaking at a number of commodity and agricultural organization meetings and I look forward to having a chance to chat and learn about what your current concerns are. The better that academics understand key issues of importance for farmers, the better able we are to undertake research that addresses them.