(OTTAWA) - The Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) is applauding the Canadian government’s recent announcement that it will pursue a trade challenge against the United States for exceeding limits on farm subsidies.

“Farmers are very pleased to see our government not giving up the fight on behalf of Canadian farmers, continuing to keep the pressure on the U.S. and its trade distorting subsidies,” said Bob Friesen, CFA president.

In June of this year Canada filed a similar request to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to rule on whether the U.S. had exceeded its domestic spending limit of $19.1 billion every year during 1999-2005 (except for 2003).  The original request was blocked by the U.S. and Canada has waited to re-file the case with the WTO until now in order to garner further support from other countries. Recently, Brazil announced that it will issue its own challenge against the US and in the coming weeks will work with Canada to coordinate challenges.

Excessive U.S. subsidies for commodities such as corn and cotton have been blamed for depressing farm prices and causing serious injury to Canadian farmers and farmers around the world during the time period specified.  

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Founded in 1935 to provide Canada's farmers with a single voice in Ottawa, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture is the country's largest farmers' organization. Its members include provincial general farm organizations as well as national and inter-provincial commodity organizations from every province. Through its members, CFA represents over 200,000 Canadian farmers and farm families.