The gap between retail and farm-gate prices for food is widening, according to a brief the National Farmers Union provided to the House of Commons the Standing Committee on Agriculture this week.
It said the focus should be on the “staggering degree of corporate concentration in food retail and processing that facilitate this long-term trend of decoupled farmgate and retail prices.”
Its brief showed in dramatic graphs how retail prices have risen far more than farmgate prices for butter, margarine, eggs, bacon, bread and especially for breakfast cereal.
The graph for corn flakes shows farmgate prices for corn flat since 1976, but soaring from $1 to $9 for a kilogram of corn flakes.
“The underlying problem is a chronic trend that started long before the COVID pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and other recent supply chain disruptions,” the NFU said.
As for supply management for dairy and poultry products, it said inflation is higher in the United States.
