Stewart Beck is president and CEO of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and a Canadian career diplomat who served abroad in India, China, Taiwan and the United States. Rajiv Lall is founder managing director and CEO, IDFC Bank, and chairman of the Asia Business Leaders Advisory Council.
Canada is fortunate that food security is not a political concern, nor is weather an annual factor in determining our GDP. Food security, on the other hand, is critical for many countries in Asia, with India perhaps being the most affected.
We imagine that India's food security is a priority topic during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's five-city tour of the country this week. India is facing a perfect storm in water management, with serious agricultural effects. A rapidly increasing population is placing an untenable load on limited water-related infrastructure and on the diminishing groundwater tapped for India's massive agricultural needs. Add to this mix the complex implications of climate change – including changes to rainfall patterns, floods, droughts and saltwater intrusion – and the situation is dire. More than 70 per cent of India's surface and groundwater is now contaminated, reports India's own Energy and Resources Institute.
While Canada has been negotiating a free-trade pact with India since 2010, and a foreign investment protection agreement since 2004, both deals will take a back seat this week as the Trudeau government focuses on more immediate issues affecting trade and investment with Asia's new economic juggernaut. In particular, there will be an effort to persuade the Indian government to overturn its decision to impose up to a 50-per-cent duty on certain pulses imported from Canada.
The duty reflects a good monsoon season last year, which increased crop yields, and the desire of the Indian government to develop its own self-sufficiency in this agricultural sector. In reality, with an expanding economy and more than 800 million people relying on pulses for their protein, Canada will always play a role in India's protein security and its food security in general.
Canada, with its related expertise, research and technologies, is also well positioned to capitalize on the opportunity to help India respond to its daunting water and agriculture challenges. Innovative technological solutions and new financing mechanisms will be key to collaboration in this sector and to broader engagement with India.
Canada's advantages in the water value chain are twofold. First, we are a global leader in specialized areas such as membrane technology, water purification, and waste-water recapture and treatment. Second, Canada has substantial expertise in water services including consulting, engineering, data analysis and construction.
In fact, according to Canada's Blue Economy Initiative, which seeks to make the country a global leader in water sustainability, approximately 500 of the 600 Canadian companies active in this space specialize in water-related services.
Transforming these made-in-Canada technologies and services into actual, scalable solutions for India calls for innovative approaches to the opportunity.
One of the challenges facing Canadian water businesses is their size and scale. To be successful in an emerging market such as India's requires deep pockets and financial instruments that will allow Canadian firms to demonstrate the viability of their technologies. These currently do not exist.
Although Export Development Canada has excellent tools to deploy to assist Canadian exporters, it is essentially an asset base lender. It does not, at this time, have the ability to support the necessary demonstration projects required to satisfy a potential client that the technology will, in fact, provide the needed solution.
Addressing this funding lacuna for Canadian water technology companies and matching it with the research and technology outputs from the government's recent announcement of supercluster funding for Protein Industries Canada can be and should be a key factor in our strategic relationship with India. In the short term, we are a commodity exporter of an essential protein element in the Indian diet – but we need and should be a strategic partner in ensuring India's long-term food and water security.
One hope for Mr. Trudeau's visit to India is for the two leaders to not only address the bilateral irritant of an increased tariff, but to look beyond to creative ways to connect and innovate around the critical water challenges facing India.
On March 2 in Toronto, the meeting of the Asian Business Leaders Advisory Council with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada will be addressing these strategic aspects of Canada's relations with Asia. We expect insights from the Prime Minister's mission to India will feature prominently in the discourse. Its challenges are our shared opportunities.
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Reuters