It should come as no surprise to anyone that the two deals that Alberta reached with two states in India to increase trade of agriculture products is being well received in the agriculture community.

The province announced a second deal in as many days on Monday with the State of Punjab, India, the Memorandum of Understanding is very similar to the one reached the day before with the State of Meghalaya.

Alberta Pork Executive Director Darcy Fitzgerald says this will increase the demand for Alberta produced pork, which will mean higher prices at market for producers in the coming years.  “Canada exports pork to about 100 different countries around the world, but it is always big when you can get access to markets of this size,” said Fitzgerald.

He says it may be a while before deals like this one and the one with the European Union is reflected in the market price, because there are still a lot of things to work out.

Provincial Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Verlyn Olson says the two deals will benefit producers now and down the road.  “These agreements will facilitate trade in that we’re going to have access to markets over there, particularly swine products, live swine and genetics certainly in Meghalaya that’s one of the very important parts of the agreement, in Punjab besides the pork industry being involved,  certainly canola, pulses, equipment, irrigation infrastructure and so on are all being discussed,” said Olson.

“One of the real important parts of these two agreements is to strike a working committee that will look at both the opportunities for trade in Agricultural products and also look at barriers and talk about how we might go about bringing those barriers down.”

Canada exports about 65 per cent of the pork we produce.

Fitzgerald says he expects more good news to be coming down the pipe soon, as the Federal Government continues to work on a new trade deal with South Korea.