Money spent on groceries is not being shared equally along the food supply chain with farmers persistently getting less, according to surveys by the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan.
“Our data continues to show a consistent story,” said president Bill Prybylski. “Food prices are rising, but the farmer’s share is actually shrinking.”
Prybylski said the supply chain needs to be more transparent so everyone understands how this is happening.
“There’s a lot of things that go on between the farm gate and grocery shelf,” he said. “There’s really no accountability, no transparency to where the increase in those prices comes from.
“We would like to see the rest of the industry step up to say exactly where is that extra cost coming from” but doubts some middlemen are not likely to do that willingly.
The Competition Bureau said earlier this year it’s going to examine the industry and the federal government more recently announced it’s going to work to improve things in the food industry.
Frankly, it's no mystery, given the number of oligopolies in the food industry, both on the input side of farming and between farms and stores.
But breaking up those oligopolies would be risky unless other countries, especially the United States, did the same thing at the same time.
