Canada: Food fears

As oil and climate change drives up food prices around the world, Vancouverites will not be immune from the escalating squeeze on pocketbooks

At Dollar Foods on Commercial Drive, manager Quoc On is busy in the back supervising the arrival of a food shipment. The aisles are jammed with hungry customers, the lineup at the cashier is deep, and outside the front door boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables are piled high on the sidewalk, the fresh produce sparkling in the warm springtime sun. The scene is one of affluence and abundance, yet behind this facade a crisis is brewing that may signal the end of the Age of Endless Abundance. At the very least, the days of cheap food imported from all around the world at very low prices may be about to end.


At the cash register, customers are quietly loading bags of Thai rice onto the counter. Sharp-eyed consumers who read newspaper headlines have learned the price of rice has risen sharply in the past few weeks. Some rice exporting countries in Asia have slapped a ban on exports because rice is not just a food staple in those countries; a bowl of rice is the difference between life and death. When the price of rice doubles, people die.

However, the same elements at play in Asia–and now spreading to Africa and South America–will soon affect Vancouver. The global food chain is disintegrating in direct relation to the global rise in the price of oil.

“Lots of our customers seem to know about the rice crisis,” says On. “They know about the increase in food prices, and rising fuel prices, too.”

Vancouver Courier