Canada’s food security rises

Canada has risen to No. 7 in the latest edition of the Global Food Security Index, released this week by Economist Impact.

This year’s ranking indicates that Canada excelled at food safety net programs, nutritional standards and protein quality, as well as 11 other areas that included food safety, barriers to accessing food and food inflation.

Canada tops the rankings in terms of food quality and safety, while a particular area of weakness is natural resources and resilience, where it ranks 35th.

This is similar to a year ago, when Canada ranked twelfth in the world on the basis of the exact same strengths.

The report focuses on metrics for each country’s standing, and positions them relative to the world at large. There is no commentary associated with the report explaining the changes.

However, on points such as food inflation, Canada stands out despite the concerns of the public and pundits alike. When it comes to changes in consumer prices, Canada has seen an increase of just 2.4% versus 2015 while the rest of the world saw prices rise 42.9%.

A recent report from Toronto-based Second Harvest Food Rescue notes that Canada has four times more food charities than it has grocery stores. The GFSI sees this as a sign that Canada is doing an excellent job of providing food for the less fortunate.

BC is even further ahead, with Second Harvest reporting that the province has six times as many food charities as grocery stores. The province’s 9,299 food charities serve 1,089,510 people, about 21% of the population.

However, the past two years has seen the province become more food secure. Thanks to food recovery programs and other initiatives, the province has reduced the unmet demand for food to 28.6 million pounds this year from 75.4 million pounds in 2019.

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