Saskatchewan has the lowest percentage of people in Canada who are considering the environmental impacts of their food choices.
That’s from a study out of Dalhousie University in Halifax, which had 26.4 per cent of people in Saskatchewan concerned about their food choices, compared with other provinces like Quebec, which scored the highest with 48.1 per cent.
Sylvain Charlebois, the director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie, said with more news circulating about wildfires, floods and droughts taking place over the summer, the researchers wanted to know if climate change is impacting people’s food choices at the supermarket.
“We’re hearing more about these things and we just wanted to know whether or not people are affected by some of these headlines and if food choices are impacted as well,” Charlebois said.
He said drought or floods can impact productivity, saying prices could increase for some food as a result of supply issues.
“As an example, beef prices are going up in Canada right now due to droughts that we actually experienced earlier in the year across the continent, both in the Prairies and the U.S.”
Many rural municipalities across Saskatchewan have been looking for disaster relief for their farmers and ranchers due to the drought conditions the province has faced.
Some producers have noted this was far from the first year they’ve faced these conditions.
Ben Wilson, the deputy reeve for the RM of Dundurn, said in July that they’ve been running short of rain for the past few years.
“The combination of the heat, the (lack of) rain and the grasshoppers moving in the crops are just, we’re running out of pasture, the grasshoppers are eating the grass before we can get cows on them. The crops aren’t growing, and if they are growing they aren’t going to fill up to get anything to harvest out of them,” Wilson said.
Wilson’s family has been working that land since about 1910, noting he’s been actively farming with his dad for the past 20 years, and said they’ve seen some rough years.
“It was probably 1988 when we had a real bad one; 2001 and 2002 were bad, but nothing that’s ever lasted this long.”
Ray Orb with the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities said near the end of July that they were trying to draw attention for some federal assistance for producers due to drought conditions, saying for many this was the sixth or seventh year they’ve seen these conditions.
He also called for a renewed conversation regarding irrigation projects across Saskatchewan.
“We had a plan not many years ago that was brought forward where the province was requested to look at a series of dams to hold back water in Saskatchewan rivers and streams and to be able to drought-proof Saskatchewan,” Orb said.
Charlebois said Saskatchewan had the lowest percentage of people considering the environmental impact of their food choices due to two factors.
“Agriculture is not necessarily well connected with local systems. Saskatchewan agriculture is all about feeding the world, not necessarily Saskatchewan per se.”
He said in other provinces there is closer proximity between agriculture and groceries.
Charlebois also suggested that many parts of the province have experienced the effects of climate change through things like drought for decades, and said many people are refusing to allow that to impact their food choices.
He said if people want to be environmentally conscious and want that to reflect in their food choices, people could look for organically produced and certified products.
Charlebois added that people can look to see where food is produced, noting that if it’s made in Canada then it should have a smaller carbon footprint.
He said there are discussions happening about having labels on food showing the ecological footprint, but said we’re probably still a long way off from that reality.
“It could lead to some discrimination against some products.”
Charlebois added that labels like that may not work, as “food is culture.”
“Food is culture. Food is about tradition. So once you start telling people, ‘Well, this is better for the environment than others,’ I’m not sure it would bode well with many demographic groups that we see in our survey.”
The survey showed that 61 per cent of Canadians believe climate change is impacting the country’s ability to produce food.
But Charlebois said for many Canadians, price is very important right now due to inflationary pressures.
“Generally speaking, I think that people are concerned about climate change and our agricultural sector’s ability to grow and produce food. But also at the same time, the same amount of Canadians are actually confident of our sector’s ability to adjust and adapt.”