You can expect to pay more for your groceries in 2020.
Changes in climate will help push food prices about four per cent higher according to the Canada Food Price Report, released by Dalhousie and Guelph universities.
Lead author, Sylvain Charlebois of the Dalhousie Agri-food Analytics Lab in Halifax says the amount of money people are spending on food is going up.
According to Charlebois, the average four-person family spent $12,180 on food, including restaurant and grocery shopping, in 2019. In 2020, expect to tack another $487 on that to buy the same food.
That’s the highest single year increase since they started writing the report ten years ago.
Charlebois notes that food prices are directly affected by climate and demand. He blamed the big increase in vegetable prices this past year to recalls caused by contaminated food.
Which, Charlebois states, is directly related to drought conditions in California and Arizona, which forced farmers to use contaminated water from afar.
The big story for 2020 will be meat, according to Charlebois, due to Chinese demand for pork.
The populous country has been devastated by Swine Fever, and China is buying pork in high numbers from other countries.