The average family in the country will see its total food bill for groceries and restaurant meals rise by as much as $487 in 2020, hitting an expected $12,667, according to the report, which is now in its 10th year.

“This is a significant problem. Already one in eight Canadian households is food insecure and food affordability is a major issue for Canadians,” Guelph project lead Simon Somogyi said in an accompanying release.

“Wage growth is stagnant. Canadians aren’t making more money, so they’re taking money away from other parts of their budgets just to eat and that gets tougher and tougher. The ever-increasing use of food banks across the country shows us how many Canadians can’t afford to put food on their plates.”

“Food price inflation is desirable, but when rates increase quickly, families can be left behind,” Sylvain Charlebois, lead author and Dalhousie project lead, said in the same release.

“Vegetables are a perfect example. Canada’s new Food Guide encourages Canadians to eat more vegetables, but they’re getting more expensive. Increasing the amount of vegetables and fruits we produce domestically would be a great start in solving this problem,” he said.

All food categories are forecast to go up in price in 2020, with meat in particular expected to go up by four to six per cent despite Canadians’ increasing interest in plant-based protein options.

The forecasting models take into account numerous macroeconomic factors. For 2020, climate change, geopolitical conflicts, energy, materials, inflation, currencies, trade deals, food retail and manufacturing figures, and consumer debt and expenditures all influenced the forecasts.

The report’s authors singled out climate change as “the elephant in the room” for 2020, with Canadian food systems expected to be affected by changing weather patterns.

The methodology used in the report has proved accurate in the past, with the 2019 projections only missing the target by $23.

The post Canadians to spend more on food in 2020, report predicts appeared first on Grainews.

Most people can continue to eat red and processed meat at current average intake, typically three or four times a week for adults in North America and Europe, said a study’s authors, who also made new recommendations based on the analysis.

“Based on the research, we cannot say with any certainty that eating red or processed meat causes cancer, diabetes or heart disease,” said Bradley Johnston, an associate professor at Halifax’s Dalhousie University, who co-led the review published on Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal.

However, in what amounts to a scientific food fight, a group of doctors from Harvard, Yale, Stanford and elsewhere, including one of the study authors, requested in a letter to the journal that it “pre-emptively retract publication” of the papers pending further review, and said revised guidelines that could lead to increased consumption of red and processed meats would be irresponsible.

A statement scheduled for publication by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, shared with Reuters by Dr. Frank Hu, chair of the Department of Nutrition, said, “from a public health point of view, it is irresponsible and unethical to issue dietary guidelines that are tantamount to promoting meat consumption, even if there is still some uncertainty about the strength of the evidence.”

Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center at the Yale University School of Medicine, cited “grave concerns about the potential for damage to public understanding, and public health.”

The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) both say red and processed meat may or can cause cancer.

The WCRF advises eating only “moderate amounts” of red meat, such as beef, pork and lamb — with an upper limit of 500 grams cooked weight per week — and “little, if any” processed meat.

A panel of experts writing in The Lancet in January outlined an “ideal diet” for human health and the planet that said global average red meat consumption should be cut by 50 per cent and consumption of nuts, fruits, vegetables and legumes should double.

For the latest analysis, researchers from Canada, Spain and Poland conducted a series of reviews of both randomized controlled trials and observational studies looking at the possible health impact of eating red and processed meat.

Among the randomized trials they selected for analysis, which included around 54,000 people, they found no statistically significant link between eating meat and the risk of heart disease, diabetes, or cancer.

Among the observational studies, which covered millions of people, they did find “a very small reduction in risk” in those who ate three fewer servings of red or processed meat a week, but said that this association “was very uncertain.”

‘Best approach’

“Our bottom line recommendation … is that for the majority of people, but not everyone, continuing their red and processed meat consumption is the best approach,” Johnston said.

Some experts not directly involved with the reviews said the work was a comprehensive, well-conducted analysis of the available evidence on eating meat and human health.

“This study will, I hope, help to eliminate the incorrect impression… that some meat products are as carcinogenic as cigarette smoke, and to discourage dramatic media headlines claiming that ‘bacon is killing us’,” said Ian Johnson, a nutrition expert at Britain’s Quadram Institute of bioscience.

Christine Laine, editor in chief of Annals of Internal Medicine, noted that nutrition studies are challenging as they are usually not randomized controlled trials and often depend on participants’ memories.

“There may be lots of reasons to decrease meat in your diet, but if you’re decreasing it to improve your health, we don’t have a lot of strong evidence to support that,” Laine said. “To be honest with our patients and the public, we shouldn’t be making recommendations that sound like they’re based on solid evidence.”

Quadram’s Johnson said people who choose to cut down their meat intake might still improve their health by doing so. “There are (also) strong environmental and ethical arguments for reducing meat consumption in the modern world.”

Eating more plant-based foods can help to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, scientists say.

— Kate Kelland is a Reuters health and science correspondent in London; additional reporting by Linda Carroll in Mannington, N.J.

The post Review of red meat’s risks spurs scientific food fight appeared first on Grainews.

A survey conducted Sept. 9 and released Tuesday by Angus Reid Global with the support of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab shows 31 per cent of Canadians believe food and agriculture will be a prime electoral issue during the election.

The survey showed there are, however, some significant individual issues that concern Canadians related to food and agriculture.

Three of five Canadians say food security and affordability is an important issue in this election. That number is higher in Manitoba and the Atlantic region where food security is a concern for 68 per cent.

The use of plastics is also a growing concern at 54 per cent believing plastics use in food is a concern in this election.

All regions are above 50 per cent in interest in this issue other than Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Food waste is the third most important agriculture and food issue for Canadians, especially in Quebec.

Supply management proved a complicated topic to survey. Saskatchewan – which has a limited number of farmers in supply-managed commodities – had 35 per cent say supply management is an important issue. Quebec and Ontario came in at 27 per cent and 32 per cent respectively.

Global trade is much more of a concern in the West, with 51 per cent of Saskatchewan residents saying global trade is important. At the other end of the spectrum, 19 per cent of Quebec residents say global trade is an issue.

When asked what the largest food and agriculture issues should be after the election, Canadian said food security, overwhelmingly — likely representing a lack of understanding on the issues in order to volunteer them.

The survey asked about the use of pesticides and urban agriculture, but the results were insignificant.

The sample size for this survey was 1,524 people from across the country, with a margin of error of less than three per cent, 19 times out of 20.

— John Greig is editor of Farmtario.

The post Food, farming not expected to be big election issues appeared first on Grainews.

No one was reported to be injured in the fire, the Nova Scotia university said via Twitter. According to local media the fire broke out Wednesday evening in the roof of the building’s east wing, housing mainly classrooms and offices.

Dalhousie, which since 2012 has operated the former Nova Scotia Agricultural College at Bible Hill, N.S., near Truro, reported Thursday that the building will be closed until further notice, with no access as the fire marshall’s investigation is underway.

“We anticipate fire officials to be on site Friday morning and once the building is released, cleaning and remediation work will begin,” the university said.

No estimate of damages was yet available Thursday. Campus dean David Gray, in a message posted on Twitter, described the fire as “devastating.”

While damage to the facility is expected, “there is an emotional response we are all feeling as we navigate the second fire on our beloved campus in three years,” he wrote. A fire damaged the campus’ Ruminant Animal Centre in 2015.

The Cox Institute of Agricultural Technology houses laboratories, classrooms, the campus registrar’s office, enrolment management and recruitment, the campus bookstore, IT services and faculty offices for Plant, Food, and Environmental Sciences and Business and Social Sciences, plus attached greenhouses.

Since the building’s opening in 1968, according to the campus website, “nearly every diploma and degree student has received at least a few lectures in Cox Institute.”

Members of the campus community were invited to attend a meeting Friday at 1 p.m. at Jenkins Hall, where Gray and an official from the Bible Hill Fire Brigade are scheduled to speak about the fire and “ongoing work to restore services.”

The immediate priority, Gray wrote Thursday, would be to “relocate faculty, staff and students to various locations and to assess the damage and our response to this damage.”

Summer courses being held at Cox Institute “have been moved to other locations,” the university said. –– AGCanada.com Network

The post Fire shutters Dalhousie ag campus’ main building appeared first on Grainews.

Expected price declines for other foods, however, will limit the impact on the total grocery bill in the country.

In the mid-year update for Canada’s Food Price Report, researchers at Dalhousie in Halifax forecast meat prices will increase by up to nine per cent on the year, which compares to the December 2016 forecast of a four to six per cent increase for meat.

Overall, food inflation is forecast at three to four per cent by the study, which would mark a slight decline from the three to five per cent increase expected in the earlier report.

The fish, dairy, bakery products and vegetable sectors were all revised lower from the annual report. However, on an individual crop basis, lettuce was singled out as a product seeing price spikes.

The rise in lettuce was reportedly tied to a combination of high demand and weather concerns with California’s crop.

The Dalhousie report compares with the official Statistics Canada Consumer Price Index, which indicates a much more modest rate of food inflation.

The post Report sees Canadian meat prices rising at faster pace appeared first on Grainews.