Canada’s inflation rate rose to 1.4% in February after months of deflation dating back to September. The increase in inflation was primarily due to rising food costs. According to Julia Beltrame of Canadian Press,
The cost of food prices at grocery stores rose 8.9 per cent in February, but particularly pronounced was the 25.8 per cent spike in fresh vegetables, 9.7 per cent increase in baked goods and cereal and a 6.1 per cent rise in meat prices. (Beltrame)
If the increase in food prices is factored out, Canada’s inflation rate would likely be at zero according to Statistics Canada. Rising food prices is not a new trend. As grain and corn are increasingly used to make alternate fuel sources, prices will increase. Also, transportation costs for food were extremely high in the summer when gas spiked to over $1.40 per litre. The lower prices that we are experiencing now are not going to last forever and higher prices are expected in the next year or two.
With the rising cost of food, localities should encourage buying locally grown foods. Niagara has fertile soil that is ideal for farmland and growing fresh fruits and vegetables, but unfortunately much of the land has been wasted in the last several years. The closure of the last fruit canning operation, CanGro Foods, in Canada during 2008, resulted in the removal of hundreds of acres of fruit trees from the area. The closure of CanGro means that there is only one remaining fruit canning operation left in all of North America (it is in California). Despite the fact that the Ontario government has been trying to push Ontarians to buy Ontario grown produce, the closure of this plant means that it will be more difficult to buy local produce.
