By Alice McFarlane

Food Freedom Day and the challenges faced by lower-income Canadian households

Feb 9, 2024 | 12:14 PM

Today is Food Freedom Day.

Each year, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) examines the proportion of income that Canadians spend on food to explore year-over-year changes and raise consumers’ understanding of Canada’s food system, from Farm-Gate-to-Plate.

CFA calculated that by Feb. 9 a Canadian household of average income will have earned enough to pay for their entire year’s grocery bill.

Canadians spent 11.1 per cent of their disposable income on food in 2023, which is slightly higher than the 11 per cent of disposable income spent on food in 2022.

Food prices have seen multiple years of significant inflation. CFA said it’s important to provide further context on Food Freedom Day, as the average Canadian disposable income is not representative of every Canadian’s experience or the effects that rising food prices have on them.

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Due to this, CFA continued to analyze Food Freedom Day with an eye to the impacts food prices have on Canadian households based on household income levels to show the percentage of disposable income that they spent on food last year.

(submitted photo/Canadian Federation of Agriculture)

There is a large difference between how much households in the lowest income quintile and the highest income quintile spent on food and beverages throughout the year.

Adding onto this, rising prices are affecting the lowest quintile disproportionately as their spending on food and non-alcoholic beverages rose from 23.1 per cent in 2022 to 28 per cent in 2023 while the disposable income spending as a percentage has dropped from 5.2 per cent in 2022 to 5 per cent in 2023.

CFA President Keith Currie said while Canadians have seen food prices increase steadily throughout 2023 on the grocery shelves, farmers receive a small percentage of the price that consumers pay for food, and rising retail prices are not normally reflective of what is paid at the farm gate.

He said farmers have seen their costs of production increase tremendously over the past several years, with many of their largest expenses, such as fertilizer and diesel, rising nearly 100 per cent in that period.

“With food costs continuing to rise, we know that many Canadians are struggling with food security and affordability. The Food Freedom Day metric shows that while Canada’s food system is a world leader in providing access to affordable food, there is a large difference in impact for Canadians of different income levels, with the lowest facing a huge, increasing burden when it comes to food costs,” Currie said.

A recent report from the Agricultural Producer of Saskatchewan showed that if the sole driving factor behind the escalating prices of bread were the increasing costs associated with wheat, the inflation rate for 2022 would have registered at two per cent. However, the actual observed inflation for 2022 amounted to a considerably higher 18 per cent.

“Food inflation is a complex issue, and studies have shown that it comes from far more than fluctuating commodity prices. We are working with industry and government on a variety of initiatives to try to both understand and combat food inflation, in order to reverse this alarming trend,” he said.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On X: @farmnewsNOW