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Abstract
In 2011, the Canadian Agrifood Policy Institute released an report highlighting the
importance of the agrifood sector to the economy and concluded by stating the need
for Canada to double the dollar value of agrifood exports to ensure the viability of the system. This paper seeks to estimate Engel elasticities faced by Canada and four other major agrifood exporter groups for two groups of emerging economies known as the
Next-11 and the BRICs, and to forecast the value of agrifood exports to 2017. The
findings suggest that despite the relatively low Engel elasticities for agrifood imports
faced by Canada, it could sell an additional $3.65 billion in agrifood products to the
Next-11 and BRICs by 2017.