The agriculture and agri-food sector is a key driver of Canada's economy, with the organics industry being one of the fastest growing sectors in Canada. Today, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, announced funding of up to $770, 000 for the Canada Organic Trade Association (COTA) to support market development for organic products.
The funding will help create domestic and international export opportunities and promote the "Canada Organic" brand. The project includes the development of market activities at major food shows in Germany and the United States with additional activities related to market accessibility and technical assessments. The investment, made under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership's AgriMarketing Program, will support the association in welcoming incoming missions, offering retailer training, creating market reports and developing a directory of organic producers and exporters.
With this investment, COTA has developed a 4-module retailer training program as well as a webinar training series on how to become 'Export Ready'. It continues to expand the training program in order to deliver sessions virtually as well as in-person to a wide stakeholder audience. In the first two years of the program COTA has trained over 600 participants from 300 companies with estimated related sales close to $1.7 million.
Today's announcement supports the continued growth of Canada's organics industry through increased access to domestic and international markets, export readiness and retailer training, and promotion of the industry to incoming missions.
