Farmers need fair pricing, author says

Consumer prejudice and expectations for cheap food must end if farmers are ever going to earn the profits they deserve, says a member of the Toronto Food Policy Council.

Its a two-way street and the consumer has to adapt, according to author and lecturer Wayne Roberts. The farmer cant be expected to adapt to continuous low prices.

Roberts was a guest speaker at the PEI ADAPT Council annual meeting in Charlottetown (Prince Edward Island) and told a packed crowd the time has come to restore respect to farming.

We have the real economy and the unreal economy in this world and thats why we have problems, he said. The federal government should restrict monopolies and restore competition in the food industry.

Roberts, who has spent two summers on the Island working at commercial farms to better acquaint himself with the upheavals in agriculture, told the luncheon only two per cent of farms are producing the most important staplefruits and vegetables.

In North America we are fixated on the meat diet and thats like driving a Hummer.

The Toronto Food Council, he said, is working to increase percentages ever so slightly each year to include more local and sustainable food.

We need fair pricing and we need to champion the quality of agricultural products and not the volume.

Roberts said while 30 per cent of family income was spent on food in the 1960s, less than 10 per cent is spent today, only emphasizing the inequities facing farmers. The Guardian