Feb. 12 is National Food Freedom Day. It means that by this date the average Canadian has earned enough money to pay for their yearly food supply.
Approximately 12 per cent of our yearly budgets go toward food. Farmers and supply chain dynamics keep food readily available and at a low cost for the vast majority of Canadians.
"Canadians can take pride in having some of the safest and most affordable food in the world. Farmers work hard to ensure the highest quality food is produced with exemplary food safety, animal welfare and environmental standards," said Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Ron Bonnett.
Just a couple of generations ago, Canadians spent around 40 per cent of their budgets on food.
There are many reasons for the decline in food pricing, not the least of which are improvements to food chain dynamics.
When your canoe is full of beaver pelts, you want to make sure you take the right stream to the trading post. If you don't, it's going to cost you precious time and, well, beaver pelts.
If you were a wheat farmer in Saskatchewan at the turn of the century, you would have been kinda happy that a railroad was built so you could deliver your product to a broader market promptly.
If people are loving your bell peppers, so much so that you have found an international market, you are going to want to get them there fresh and as cheaply and safely as possible.
Same goes for our food imports. Chiquita and Sunkist want to get product to us quickly and safely, and in a manner that ensures a profitable trade balance.
Farming is a difficult business. Farmers need land, but they also need efficiencies within the supply chain so they can maintain and hopefully improve upon perilously skinny margins.
Farmers need to make money and stickhandling product through regional or international food chains is no easy task. Moving food commodities from supplier, to manufacturer, distributor, retailer and eventually to us consumers requires deft maneuvering on behalf of these most important of suppliers to ensure we have enough cheap food to eat.
We should all know there are trade-offs and compromises needed to get food to our tables. Sometimes infrastructure improvements affect farmland.
Farming and domestic food production and processing account for nine per cent of Canada's GDP. Since most of our food comes from somewhere other than our local communities, it gets hauled in trucks, trains, boats and planes using the best routes possible to mitigate costs.
Part of a developing National Food Strategy recognizes this reality.
The strategy states: "Infrastructure and food distribution processes and regulations guarantee efficient and effective distribution to all areas of the country, including urban, rural and remote."
Farmers are getting squeezed at every turn so we need to support them by buying Canadian product when the choice is presented.
When you are stuck behind that container truck on the highway, or when you are swearing to yourself at a rail crossing waiting for the endless train to be gone, remember that a good percentage of these containers are delivering food to you.
