European and Canadian leaders have agreed that the Comprehensive Free Trade Agreemment (CETA) will provisionally enter into force on 21 September, pending ratification by national parliaments in all EU member states.

The main opportunity for European farmers lies in the annual 16,000t of consumer cheese and 1,700t of industrial ingredient cheese to be allowed duty-free into Canada gradually in the next six years.

Irish exporters are now entering the fray to carve up allocations between Canadian buyers and Canadian-based branches of European processors.

“EU sources see the Canadians trying to allocate as much quota as possible to Canadian operators as a means to keep EU companies out of the highly priced but fiercely protected dairy market,” Irish Dairy Industries Association (IDIA) director Conor Mulvihill told the Irish Farmers Journal following a brief meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Dublin last week.

Quota

One key aspect will be the quota accessible to companies not yet exporting to Canada. This is the case for many exporters from Ireland, which shipped only 240t of cheese to the country last year, compared with 4,690t from Italy and 3,710t from France.

The IDIA is looking to expand the proposed 30% share for such newcomer companies. Mulvihill said this would benefit Irish processors “interested in diversifying their cheese portfolio in a post-Brexit environment, as Canada is one of the few countries with a developed taste for the cheddar-type product that we specialise in”.

CETA will also gradually open European doors to 45,000t of additional Canadian beef and 75,000t of pigmeat per year, and approve the entire EU for beef exports to Canada.

While there are concerns over Canadian beef entering the EU, the reverse could be a boost for Northern Ireland farmers who have yet to access other markets recently opened to beef from the Republic, such as Japan and the US.