Agriculture
Average family to pay $400 more for groceries next year, report estimates
The average Canadian family will pay about $400 more for groceries and roughly $150 more for dining out next year, an annual food price report predicts.
Food prices will rise between 1.5 to 3.5 per cent in 2019, according to the report from researchers at the University of Guelph and Dalhousie University. That means the average family of four will spend $12,157 next year — up $411 from 2018.
Vegetables will see the biggest price jumps — between four and six per cent for the category, according to the report.
Meanwhile, meat and seafood prices are expected to fall, with the meat category to decline by one to three per cent and seafood costs to remain the same or fall up to two per cent.
Since 2015, the team has predicted prices in those two categories would rise as high as six per cent each year.
“This is a bit of a risk for us… We’ve never done that,” said Sylvain Charlebois, one of the lead researchers and a professor at Dalhousie University, referring to anticipating a decline.
But the team is confident in its prediction.
They believe there’s an oversupply of meat, he said, and Canadians are eating less animal protein. Instead, they’re showing more interest in alternative proteins, like quinoa and lentils.
The plant-based protein trend is evident in recent manufacturer and restaurant moves as well.
Meat processors Maple Leaf Foods Inc., for example, acquired two companies in this niche in recent years, Lightlife Foods and Field Roast GrainMeat Co.
At the same time, fast food chains have started adding vegan and vegetarian options to their menus. A&W Food Services of Canada Inc. even temporarily sold out of its Beyond Meat patties shortly after adding them to its menu.
Industry watchers have attributed the demand for plant-based protein to millennials, health-conscious baby boomers and concerns around antibiotic use in agriculture.
A turning point for animal protein, though, was 2014 when beef prices started to rise dramatically, said Charlebois.
Between December 2013 and December 2014 the monthly average retail price for one kilogram of ground beef rose more than 26 per cent, according to Statistics Canada data. For comparison, the price advanced about 3.5 per cent from December 2012-13. It reached a record high of $13.23 in October 2015.
“It really spooked consumers,” said Charlebois, adding they started substituting plant-based protein into their diet.
Butchers and grocers will likely take it easy on beef prices next year in an effort to bring people back to the red meat, he said.
Consumers’ embrace of plant proteins will help push vegetable prices higher next year, as will the weather, according to the report.
“Fruit and vegetables are some of the most perishable, fragile food products that are on the grocery shelf,” said Simon Somogyi, a lead researcher on the report and a University of Guelph professor.
They’re particularly influenced by climactic events, like the El Nino expected to occur this winter, he said, which can result in warmer and drier conditions, and create shortages in the supply chain.
As far as which vegetables may see the biggest increases, it’s difficult to know what produce item will become the next cauliflower, Charlebois said. The cruciferous vegetable saw soaring prices per head in 2016.
Charlebois points to lettuce and tomatoes as possible candidates for big price fluctuations. Meanwhile, Somogyi said produce imported into Canada is more susceptible to weather events and the corresponding price changes.
The report predicts more modest increases for bakery (one to three per cent), dairy (zero to two per cent), fruit (one to three per cent) and other food items, such as non-perishables, not covered by the other categories (zero to two per cent).
Restaurant prices will rise between two and four per cent, according to the report, mainly because operators’ labour costs increased as several provinces and territories boosted their mandated minimum hourly wage recently.
The researchers’ predictions for 2018 were fairly accurate. Fruit prices, which they estimated would rise between one to three per cent, stayed stagnant — the only category where they missed the mark.
Follow @AleksSagan on Twitter.
Companies in this story: (TSX:MFI)
Aleksandra Sagan, The Canadian Press
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Bonner Cohen
“We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar,” said President Trump in an Aug. 20 post on Truth Social. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!”
Trump’s remarks came six weeks after enactment of his One Big Beautiful Bill terminated tax credits for wind and solar projects by the end of 2027.
The Trump administration has also issued a stop-work order for the Revolution Wind project, an industrial-scale offshore wind project 12 miles off the Rhode Island coast that was 80 percent completed. This was followed by an Aug. 29 announcement by the Department of Transportation that it was cutting around $679 million in federal funding for 12 offshore wind farms in 11 states, calling the projects “wasteful.”
Sending an unmistakable message to investors to avoid risking their capital on no-longer-fashionable green energy, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) is pulling the plug on a slew of funding programs for wind and solar power.
“Our prime farmland should not be wasted and replaced with green new deal subsidized solar panels,” said Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on a visit to Tennessee in late August. “We are no longer allowing businesses to use your taxpayer dollars to fund solar projects on prime American farmland, and we will no longer allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in our USDA-funded projects.”
The White House is putting the squeeze on an industry that can ill-afford to lose the privileges it has enjoyed for so many years. Acknowledging the hesitancy of investors to fund green-energy projects with the looming phaseout of federal subsidies, James Holmes, CEO of Solx, a solar module manufacturer, told The Washington Post, “We’re seeing some paralysis in decision-making in the developer world right now.” He added, “There’s been a pretty significant hit to our industry, but we’ll get through it.”
That may not be easy. According to SolarInsure, a firm that tracks the commercial performance of the domestic solar industry, over 100 solar companies declared bankruptcy or shut down in 2024—a year before the second Trump administration started turning the screws on the industry.
As wind and solar companies confront an increasingly unfavorable commercial and political climate, green energy is also taking a hit from its global financial support network.
The United Nations-backed Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) “has suspended activities, following the departure of numerous financial institutions from its ranks amid political pressure from the Trump administration,” The Wall Street Journal reported. Established in 2021, the NZBA’s 120 banks in 40 countries were a formidable element in global decarbonization schemes, which included support for wind and solar power. Among the U.S. banks that headed for the exits in the aftermath of Trump’s election were JP Morgan, Citi, and Morgan Stanley. They have been joined more recently by European heavyweights HSBC, Barclays, and UBS.
Wind and solar power require a lot of upfront capital, and investors may be having second thoughts about placing their bets on what looks like a losing horse.
“Wind and solar energy are dilute, intermittent, fragile, surface-intensive, transmission-extensive, and government-dependent,” notes Robert Bradley, founder and CEO of the Institute for Energy Research.
Given these inherent disadvantages of wind and solar power, it’s no surprise that the Department of Agriculture is throttling the flow of taxpayer money to solar projects. The USDA’s mission is to “provide leadership on food, agriculture, food, natural resources, rural development, nutrition, and related issues….” It is not to help prop up an industry whose best days are behind it.
Effective immediately, wind and solar projects will no longer be eligible for USDA Rural Development Business and Industry (B&I) Guaranteed Loan Program. A second USDA energy-related guaranteed loan program, known by the acronym REAP, will henceforth require that wind and solar installations on farms and ranches be “right-sized for their facilities.”
If project applications include ground-mounted solar photovoltaic systems larger than 50 kilowatts or such systems that “cannot document historical energy usage,” they will not be eligible for REAP.
Ending Misallocation Of Resources
“For too long, Washington bureaucrats and foreign adversaries have tried to dictate how we use our land and our resources,” said Republican Rep. Harriot Hagermann of Wyoming. “Taxpayers should never be forced to bankroll green new deal scams that destroy our farmland and undermine our food security.”
Hagermann’s citing of “foreign adversaries” is a clear reference to China, which is by far the world’s leading manufacturer of solar panels, according to the International Energy Agency.
According to a USDA study from 2024, 424,000 acres of rural land were home to wind turbines and solar arrays in 2020. While this – outdated – figure represents less than 0.05 percent of the nearly 900 million acres of farmland in the U.S., the prospect of ever-increasing amounts of farmland being taken out of full-time food production to support part-time energy was enough to persuade USDA that a change of course was in order.
Bonner Russell Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).
Quick Hit:
The Trump administration’s USDA is pulling back from defending Biden-era farm aid programs that gave preferential treatment based on race and gender. The move aligns with President Trump’s directive to dismantle remaining diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across federal agencies.
Key Details:
- The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) sued on behalf of dairy farmer Adam Faust, challenging USDA aid programs that favor minorities and women.
- Programs under scrutiny include loan guarantees, dairy coverage, and conservation incentives, all of which disadvantaged white male farmers.
- USDA issued a final rule eliminating “socially disadvantaged” designations, stating programs must uphold meritocracy, fairness, and equal opportunity.
Diving Deeper:
The U.S. Department of Agriculture under the Trump administration is abandoning its defense of farm aid programs created during the Biden years that granted benefits based on race and gender. In a recent court filing, the USDA declined to defend several programs that civil rights watchdogs argue discriminated against white male farmers.
The litigation was brought forward by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) on behalf of Adam Faust, a Wisconsin dairy farmer. Faust contends that the Biden-era rules violated equal protection principles by privileging minorities and women over others in loan guarantees, dairy margin coverage, and conservation cost-share programs.
Under the loan guarantee program, minority and female farmers could secure up to 95% federal backing on loans, while white male farmers were limited to 90%. This disparity directly affected borrowing power and interest rates. Similarly, the Dairy Margin Coverage Program charged white male farmers a $100 annual fee, while exempting “socially disadvantaged” farmers. In conservation projects, minority and female participants received up to 90% reimbursement for costs, while others received only 75%.
On July 10, the USDA issued a final rule to strike the “socially disadvantaged” designation from its regulations, calling it inconsistent with constitutional principles and with President Trump’s policy objectives. “Moving forward,” the USDA rule stated, “USDA will no longer apply race- or sex-based criteria in its decision-making processes, ensuring that its programs are administered in a manner that upholds the principles of meritocracy, fairness, and equal opportunity for all participants.”
The department noted that while the loan guarantee program will be amended immediately, officials are still reviewing how to apply the new policy to the dairy and conservation programs. The USDA also signaled that its decision “could obviate the need for further litigation,” though WILL has indicated its legal fight will continue.
“This lawsuit served as a much-needed reminder to the USDA that President Trump has ordered the end to all federal DEI programs,” said Dan Lennington, deputy legal counsel at WILL. “There’s more work to be done, but today’s victory gives us a clear path to do even more in the name of equality.”
Bystanders Tried To Help Charlotte Stabbing Victim In Her Dying Moments
Charlotte train killer hit with federal murder charge, faces max penalty
French government collapses after budget vote, Le Pen demands elections
Charlie Kirk ASSASSINATED
Poilievre: “Carney More Irresponsible Than Trudeau” as Housing, Jobs, and Energy Failures Mount
Conservative speaker and celebrity Charlie Kirk shot during Q & A event at Utah Valley University
Yes Alberta has a spending problem. But it has solutions too
-
Daily Caller2 days agoTrump Admin To Push UN Overhaul Of ‘Haphazard And Chaotic’ Refugee Policy
-
Business1 day agoCarney’s Ethics Test: Opposition MP’s To Challenge Prime Minister’s Financial Ties to China
-
Artificial Intelligence2 days agoWhat are data centers and why do they matter?
-
Business2 days agoCarney Admits Deficit Will Top $61.9 Billion, Unveils New Housing Bureaucracy
-
Business1 day agoAttrition doesn’t go far enough, taxpayers need real cuts
-
Business1 day agoCarney government’s housing GST rebate doesn’t go far enough
-
Media1 day agoCancel culture wins ultimate victory as murder of Charlie Kirk ghoulishly celebrated by radical Left, media included
-
Alberta1 day agoBreak the Fences, Keep the Frontier