| Written by Michael Swan, The Catholic Register,
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 TORONTO - An 87-per-cent rise in the average price of a loaf of bread, from $1.30 in 1998 to $2.43 in 2008, might be pocket change for a middle-class family but those kinds of price increases are eating away at the sustainability of food banks feeding the poor in Ontario, according to the Ontario Association of Food Banks.
With food prices increasing at roughly double the rate of inflation, a 62-per-cent increase in gasoline prices since 2003, plus rising heating and electricity costs, poor families and the food banks they rely on are fearful of what the coming year will bring, according to “A Gathering Storm” — the OAFB’s 2008 annual assessment of the state of the province’s food banks.
The trouble is that these increases come just as Ontario’s economy is headed south and unemployment is expected to rise, said association executive director Adam Spence.
“We’re losing jobs, good jobs, in Ontario,” Spence said. “So rising prices in combination with job loses in manufacturing and other important, well-paying sectors make it even more difficult.”
Food banks, which have traditionally collected donations of non-perishable food at churches, fire halls and grocery stores, are increasingly forced to spend cash on food to stock their shelves. For some food banks as much as 30 per cent of their food is purchased at retail prices. That’s putting pressure on food banks to do more fund-raising and stretching the volunteers to their limits, said Spence.
“They’re very worried. They’re worried about rising prices. They’re worried about their ability to meet the need,” Spence said. “Quite frankly, they will not be able to do so by themselves.”
With its long-standing relationships with Toronto’s hotel kitchens and banquet halls, St. Francis’ Table in Toronto’s Parkdale neighbourhood hasn’t yet felt the pinch of higher food costs, said Brother John Frampton, the maitre d’table of the $1-a-meal restaurant. But the Capuchin friar is hearing about hard times from the patrons.
“I’ve had a couple of seniors come along the last month who have said that they just couldn’t afford to buy food,” Frampton said. “They’re quite grateful that we’re there.”
Inflation in essentials hits those on fixed incomes — seniors and families on social assistance — hardest, said Spence.
Relying on Statistics Canada figures, the OAFB found that inflation in healthy foods — milk, eggs, bread, ground beef — is much more severe than the stable or even falling prices for fruit-flavoured crystals, processed cheese and other less healthy choices. That’s a problem when 40 per cent of the 318,540 Ontarians who use food banks every month are children, said the OAFB report.
A projected 0.6-per-cent rise in unemployment between 2007 and 2009 translates into an extra 45,000 Ontarians out of work by next year. With only 27 per cent eligible for unemployment insurance, many of those 45,000 will end up on welfare and relying on already stretched food banks, Spence said.
Churches and volunteer groups are going to have to do more to meet the challenge, he said.
“Neighbours will have to move beyond just traditional volunteer and democratic means to engage in things like social enterprises and community gardens,” said Spence.
“It will have to be all shovels in the ground to make sure we will be able to make it through the coming year.”
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