Carroll’s blog catches Pike’s attention

Gary Pike, president of PMG and host of the AgProgress Conference in Kananaskis, Alta. this week, says it was one of Jim Carroll’s recent blog entries that inspired Pike to bring Carroll to the conference. (In the photo, Pike is on right, Carroll on the left.) Carroll wrote a fictional report, called “Canada announces end of economic relationship with U.S. and a bold new strategy to 2020,” where he invents a seven-point plan to broaden Canada’s trade vision.

Carroll is a trends watcher, author and keynote speaker. He likes to talk about the importance of innovation, but every once in awhile he'll branch out — as he did with this blog.

While the seven-point plan is Carroll's creation, it does raise some important discussion points for a nation that depends so much on one trade partner.

You can read the whole entry at http://www.jimcarroll.com/blog/canada-2020.html, but here are a few key paragraphs lifted verbatim from the blog:

—Canada announced a significant 10-year, seven-point plan, branded "Canada Transformed!" that will re-orient its economy away from the United States to the AEA (Asia, Europe and Africa) markets by 2020 with a number of key goals:

—Energy & oil: Canada will invest in a massive infrastructure project that will allow it to deliver the bulk of it's significant energy/oil resources to Asia, Europe and Africa within five to seven years. The infrastructure project will consist of a number of significant pipeline projects that will direct Canadian oil, natural gas and other energy sources to east and west coast ports, as well as shipping and marine infrastructure, that will provide for a "ocean railway of energy" destined to the AEA countries.

— Food and agriculture: Global food production must double to meet world population growth, and Canadian grain, beef, pork and other producers will work to achieve an AEA target market of 90 per cent by 2020. "The Canadian agricultural system has been held hostage to the interests of protectionist agricultural interests in its worst form in the U.S.," noted Canada. "We intend to end this abuse. Most recently, the implementation of country-of-origin-labeling rules by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that have had a devastating impact on Canadian pork and beef producers. The U.S. has not played an honest game with Canadian agricultural trade for quite some time, and we have come to the realization that they will never do so."

"Quite simply, the rest of the world beyond the U.S. needs a stable, reliable food supplier, and Canada intends to become the leading global brand in that regard."

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