What can be done about food prices?
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Executive Chef Shannon Wrightson and Beekeeper John Gibeau – The inaugural Honey Harvest at The Fairmont Waterfront Hotel.
New guests of The Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in early June of this year were two notable queens. While they may not be of the royal lineage, their journey is unique. The queens hail from Italy with one raised in Kona Hawaii and the other in Santiago Chile. Their subjects have had an equally notable journey, travelling around the globe from their home of New Zealand to join the queens here in Vancouver. Today the honey bees are the newest rooftop guests of The Fairmont Waterfront’s culinary team. – read more at www.urbanmixer.com
Question by Donny: What can be done about food prices?
Is it possible to bring down food prices? I was in the States a few months ago and the food price are way out of line. The packaging is much larger for less money. People in Canada are being ripped off big time by greedy food producers. Here in Canada the packaging is smaller and cost quite a bit more. Other than don’t buy it, what can be done?
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3 Responses to What can be done about food prices?
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There isn’t really much that can be done. Except just shop as cheap as possible. Buy store brands, use coupons. Go to stores that double and triple coupons, and use as many as you can. Have you ever seen that Extreme Couponing show? Those women save hundreds of dollars every week. If you take your ad to Walmart they will give you the product for a lower price if you find one.
Jennifer
January 12, 2013 at 8:23 am
I agree. Prices are horrendous in the U.S.
Co’s like Monsanto and Bayer are putting the little farmer out of business so now we have less and less fruit, veg’s and farm meats; and ppl continue to have multiple children they cannot afford to take care of. Therefore, too many people and not enough food production to keep up with the over population. The U.S. used to be able to grow all of its produce and meats without importing, so we were able to sustain ourselves and the population. We began exporting, then the big companies put the small farmers out of business. Now the big companies are screwing us and we don’t have the farm land we used to. Now we import so much of our food. For instance, we import Asian Crab when we could be buying Alaskan King Crab or Snow Crab caught in the Bering Sea by our state, Alaska. We import apples when Washington used to be full of apple farms; which are now shut out of business and the trees have been pulled up! How terrible. Pulling up lovely, fruit bearing trees because the banks say so. Farming used to be a great business (my dad made millions off of it), but now farmers are placed into foreclosure and we are fortunate IF we are able to have a seasonal farmer’s market.
So, what can be done is to allow the small farmer to make a come back, screw the large co’s with the insecticides that make us ill and kill our bees, people stop having 6 kids when you know you can’t afford to feed them unless us tax payers are buying food stamps for you.
We need to take a closer look at what the banks and large co’s are doing to our farmers. We need to give our local farmer a break. Buy his stuff when possible.
Soon I’ll be getting half a pig from a friend who raises them. I also get my eggs from him.
I raised my own herbs last summer (they’re now in the house), and some of my favorite veg’s. I bartered herbs with ppl who grew squash, cucumbers and things I did not grow.
Support your local and/or small farmers. Find someone who raises his own chickens, etc for meat and eggs.
When you buy produce, look to see where it’s from. If it’s imported from far away, you know you are not supporting your local people. You are supporting another country and paying for transport, handling, boxing, etc…
We need to get back to our roots!
aknaswonder
January 12, 2013 at 8:53 am
Food prices are actually at a near historical low as a percentage of income. It is now under 10% of your average income vs. 15% barely twenty years ago, and well over 25% at the beginning of the century.
Food prices are about lower (by about 20-30%) in the United States. There are lots of reasons for this:
1. Longer growing season.
2. Wider variety of crops which can be produced without importing and closer to those which it can’t produce.
3. Lower fuel costs for transportation, collecting, watering, etc.
4. Smaller country — less transportation costs.
5. Larger population — hence more economical for mass production, transportation, storage, and distribution.
6. Larger families. The US has a much higher native birth rate and hence makes more larger sized packages. More bulk foods. Americans also consume more food than Canadians on average.
7. Less environmental regulations and more interest in organic foods, animal rights, food safety, etc.
8. Lower labour rates. Canada doesn’t have millions of recent immigrants (legal or illegal) willing to pick fruit or work in plants for $ 7/hour with no benefits — and often working illegally without submitting taxes. Same with truck drivers, packers, processing people, and check out staff.
9. Higher corporate tax rates. This affects farmers, distributors, warehouses, trucking companies, and the food stores.
People in Canada aren’t being ripped off. They are paying the cost of living in a more northern climate, in a less densely populated country, having smaller families, higher tax rates, stricter immigration policies, stricter employment laws, etc., etc.
It is hardly the “greedy producers”. Most Canadian farmers and ranchers are are going out of business or barely getting by. You are certainly free to go and buy a farm, warehouse, trucking company, or grocery store (or invest in one) if you think you can get food to the Canadian market any cheaper.
bw022
January 12, 2013 at 9:15 am