• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires May 27, 2023
‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair May 23, 2023
Ontario Overrules Cities to Push Gas Plant Expansions May 23, 2023
Climate Concerns Drive Job Choices for 40% of Workers Under 40 May 23, 2023
PEROVSKITES: Qcells Plans First Production Line for ‘Miracle’ Solar Cell May 23, 2023
Next
Prev

Canadian Food Prices Set to Rise $487 Per Family, with Climate a Major Cause

December 6, 2019
Reading time: 3 minutes

Xchap1x/Wikimedia Commons

Xchap1x/Wikimedia Commons

37
SHARES
 

The average Canadian family will pay $487 more for food next year, and the authors of the country’s annual food price report are pointing to climate change as a major cause of the increase.

“The forecast, driven in large part by climate change and continuing trade issues, outpaces the average food inflation rate over the past decade of about 2.0 to 2.5% a year,” the Globe and Mail reports. “Meat, fresh fruit, and vegetables are expected to jump the most in price. Meat, especially, is to be between 4.0 and 6% more expensive than 2019.”

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

 “The report calls the impact of changing weather patterns on our food systems through droughts, forest fires, heavy precipitation, reduced freshwater access, and rising sea levels ‘the elephant in the room’ for 2020,” The Canadian Press reports, in a dispatch republished by CBC. “That link between climate change and food prices comes with a forecast that the average Canadian family will spend $12,667 on food at grocery stores and restaurants in 2020”—a 2-4% jump over 2019, and the second-largest increase ever.

“We’re deliberately pointing out that climate change is causing the droughts, is causing the bad snowstorms that [are] impacting prices,” said co-author Simon Somogyi, an agri-food business specialist at the University of Guelph.

“Canadian farmers will face challenges in the future dealing with unpredictable crop yields, heat wave livestock threats, pasture availability, and pest and disease outbreaks,” the report states.

Somogyi warned that climate change will continue to drive up prices without a shift in the country’s food system. “If we maintain our current Canadian food distribution structure, I can see that happening each year—4%, 10%, 15%,” he said. He’s calling for a national food policy that “focuses on producing more high-cost items, like many vegetables, in Canada through vertical and indoor farming,” CP writes. “That would reduce time to market, costs, and risks of bacterial outbreaks.”

The CP coverage traces a range of factors that influence food prices, but the report concluded that climate change was responsible for “the bulk” of last year’s sudden increase in vegetable costs.

“A hotter climate is one factor behind an increase in bacterial outbreaks such as E. coli, Somogyi said, as hotter temperatures and unpredictable heat waves increase bacterial growth,” the news agency explains. “In recent years, multiple E. coli outbreaks prompted grocers to pull romaine lettuce off their shelves and restaurants to stop serving the leafy green, which tend to drive up prices for alternatives, like spinach.”

Produce prices “also trend up because Canada imports vast amounts of its food, as the colder weather limits what can be grown. Imported goods can fluctuate in price due to trade issues creating slowdowns at borders, or weather events impacting delivery logistics.”

While the specific costs attributable to climate change can be hard to quantify, report co-author Sylvain Charlebois of Dalhousie University said it’s easier to capture the impact by focusing on price volatility. “Everybody agrees it costs more, but we don’t really know how much,” he told the Globe. But “today, every single month there’s at least one product that goes up 10 or 20%” because of erratic weather patterns. “So the price of climate change, really, is unpredictability.”

Charlebois said awareness of the climate crisis is also shifting consumers’ food preferences. “People, when they think about food, they see the planet on their dinner plates much more so than ever before,” and with younger generations leading a shift to more plant-based diets, fast food chains and manufacturers are racing to catch up.

“The rise of plant-based alternatives does give optimism for meat prices by creating a new class of substitutes, but global demand for meat outside Canada will increase domestic prices in 2020,” the report states.



in Canada, Drought, Famine & Wildfires, Energy / Carbon Pricing & Economics, Food Security & Agriculture, Severe Storms & Flooding

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Martin Davis/Facebook
Carbon Levels & Measurement

13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires

May 27, 2023
11
Inspiration 4 Photos/flickr
Climate Impacts & Adaptation

Cooling Upper Atmosphere Has Scientists ‘Very Worried’

May 23, 2023
232
Jon Sullivan/flickr
Clean Electricity Grid

Ontario Overrules Cities to Push Gas Plant Expansions

May 23, 2023
851

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

François GOGLINS/wikimedia commons

Corrosion Problem Shutters Half of France’s Nuclear Reactors

August 2, 2022
3.7k
University of Oxford Press Office/flickr

PEROVSKITES: Qcells Plans First Production Line for ‘Miracle’ Solar Cell

May 23, 2023
400
Arctic Circle/flickr

‘Remarkable Rebuke’: 130 U.S, EU Legislators Ask UN to Ditch Fossil CEO as COP 28 Chair

May 23, 2023
367
Inspiration 4 Photos/flickr

Cooling Upper Atmosphere Has Scientists ‘Very Worried’

May 23, 2023
232
Jon Sullivan/flickr

Ontario Overrules Cities to Push Gas Plant Expansions

May 23, 2023
851
nakashi/flickr

Tokyo Residents Rally to Protect Trees, Stop Skyscrapers in Iconic Urban Park

May 21, 2023
476

Recent Posts

Martin Davis/Facebook

13 Canadian Fossils Linked to Massive Losses in Western Wildfires

May 27, 2023
11
FMSC/Flickr

Waive Debt to Unlock Urgently Needed Adaptation Funds, Researchers Urge

May 27, 2023
13
Andrés Nieto Porras/wikimedia commons

‘Carbon Neutral’, ‘Net-Zero’ Claims Face Global Greenwash Crackdown

May 23, 2023
196
Activités culturelles UdeM/Flickr

Climate Concerns Drive Job Choices for 40% of Workers Under 40

May 23, 2023
155
peellden/Wikimedia Commons

Scientists Sound Alarm on Methane Emissions, Habitat Hazards at U.S. Hydro Dams

May 23, 2023
147
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/unrecognizable-from-the-original-design-suburban-renovations-disprove-cookie-cutter-stereotype

Embrace Suburbs, Exurbs in Climate Planning, Researchers Urge Cities

May 21, 2023
46
Next Post
Throne speech Ottawa 2019 climate action emissions Trudeau Payette

Wilkinson Vows Tougher 2030 Emissions Target as Throne Speech Promises Net-Zero by 2050

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}