Economists say there are a number of factors driving up food prices, but they expect food inflation to slow over time. Here's a look at what’s behind Canada’s high grocery prices and what to expect in the coming months.

TLDR; climate change, Russia, supply chain not recovered, labor shortages; more price increases expected :/

  • EhForumUser
    41·
    11 months ago

    we’re only entering this El Nino cycle.

    El Niño typically brings rain. In fact, as you know being a farmer, several weeks ago there was drought panic in the market – but with that cycle starting to set in the rains finally came and the prices came tumbling down again thereafter.

    Commodity prices are 30-50% of what they were last year. The grocer price remains high only because it takes a while to work through the system. Next year things will look quite a bit different.

    Drought has crushed yields over a vast area of Canada’s agricultural land.

    We’ve mostly recovered here in Ontario, but true that things don’t look so great in the west. However, the markets aren’t terribly concerned. Wheat, for example, is down 10% in just a couple of weeks. Canada isn’t that significant of a producer in the grand scheme of things, really.

    What won’t plummet is the consumer price of beef, I can almost guarantee it.

    Well, it is certainly volatile right now. The dumping is visible as you can see beef being sold for half the price of the day before if you go to the store at the right time, and then it jumps back up soon thereafter. But, overall, beef lags corn. It will take several years to work its way through the system, just like in 2013. Eventually it will return. It always does. We’ve been here a million times before.

    And I shudder to think of what grain and bread prices could be by the end of this year.

    All us farmers would love to go back to last year’s market, I’m sure. But for the consumer, the rains came at just the right time in the most important places, so things are going to almost certainly going to become cheaper still.

    The cure for high prices is high prices.

    • CobraChicken
      2·
      11 months ago

      The person you’re replying to is a very interesting person indeed. They’re a farmer, an electrician and looks like a fairly knowledgeable, low level programmer as well.

      • EhForumUser
        41·
        11 months ago

        Sounds like every farmer. Who knew they were all so interesting?

      • ikidd
        21·
        11 months ago

        The amount of things you need to be able to do as a farmer would astound everyone that thinks farmers are yokels. Run a multi-million dollar business and you need to learn things, who knew?

        • EhForumUser
          2·
          11 months ago

          Not to mention that, save the guilded few who had the farm given to them, one needs a lucrative career to fund their farming habit, so you’re going to find a lot of farmers who also work as electricians, programmers, doctors, lawyers, etc.

    • ikidd
      2·
      11 months ago

      the prices came tumbling down again thereafter.

      Not from what I’ve seen. Canola hit another spike a couple weeks ago pulled up by the general veg oil complex, we sold a few loads then, there is some of the usual seasonal drop heading into harvest now. Canola is also driven by demand from crush plants coming online across Canada. Barley and oats are doing well too, accounting for harvest pressure. Which does mean beef will generally stay up based on feed prices that seem baked in for a while.