The National Farmers Union (NFU), a Canada-wide labour organization representing farmers has data suggesting that farmers are not profiting from food price increases.

The information comes from a brief submitted to he House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food which is currently undertaking a study on food price increases in Canada.

The study undertaken by the NFU shows that the gap between farmgate prices, what farmers are selling their produce for, and retail prices for consumers is widening. The NFU data shows that while the prices farmers receive have modestly increased since the 1970s for commodities like wheat and corn, the price of finished products like bread and cornflakes have shot up, especially in the last 5 years.

The brief also shows that while the price of bacon has dramatically increased over the past few years, the price farmers were getting for hog carcasses has been relatively flat. The study goes so far as to claim that the price between raw inputs and finished products has been so decoupled that for the two years from 2014-2016, hog prices fell while retail bacon prices rose.

The brief shows an exception in supply-managed products like eggs and butter, where it found that the rate Canadian farmers are selling those commodities is at relatively higher prices, more closely matching price increases paid by consumers.

The brief laid the blame for higher food price increases on both food processors and retailers.

“There has never been so much money in the Canadian food supply system, but there has never been a smaller portion making it back to farmers. Farmers and consumers are clearly in the same boat, dealing with a highly consolidated processing and retail sector that can set prices to suit themselves and award enormous salaries to corporate CEOs”, said Stewart Wells, NFU VP of Operations and Saskatchewan in the press release announcing the brief.

The brief concluded by stating that while farmers’ operations are being financially squeezed by the rise in input costs: “We caution that this line of argument should not be taken to mean that rising input costs are causing food price inflation. As demonstrated throughout this brief, retail price increases are not the simple result of farmgate price increases. Instead, attention must be placed on the staggering degrees of corporate concentration in food retail and processing that facilitate this long-term trend of decoupled farmgate and retail prices.”

You can read the full brief on the NFU’s website.

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