Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen, good evening.
Quebec's produce growers believe that food security, which includes price inflation, should be recognized as a key issue by our governments. The invasion of Ukraine, shortages of raw materials and successive interest rate hikes have contributed to increasing our production costs. Produce growers have to pay more, but that isn't reflected proportionately in farm gate prices.
We were surprised to hear a representative of a large chain state in this forum: “We have a fairly equitable process to evaluate whether our relationship with the supplier is balanced”. If that were true, why did Canada's agriculture ministers feel the need to develop a code of conduct from the ground up governing best practices between grocers and their suppliers?
For us produce growers, the prices of everything we buy and every raw material we use to grow our produce have risen much faster than the amount we receive for those same products. In fact, less and less of what consumers pay when they buy their vegetables is going back to the vegetable grower.
For example, this summer at the end of June, the amount received by one grower for a single head of iceberg lettuce was less than 87 cents. From this unit price, the grower had to deduct all the fees unilaterally imposed by the retailer. A few hours later, the consumer was paying a discounted $1.99 for the same head of lettuce.
We really must insist that produce growers are facing skyrocketing input prices, interest charges, and enforcement and regulatory fees. Delivering quality products is a daily struggle, and their return on investment isn't always worth the risk they take.