The impact of higher food prices has to be understood.Ottawa-After all the controversy about food price increases during 2022, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture has calculated that it only needs to add one day to the amount of time it will take a household of average income to earn enough to pay this year's entire grocery bill.That day in 2023 was Feb. 9. CFA says Canadians spent 11 per cent of their disposable income on food during 2022, which was slightly higher than the 10.7 per cent in 2021.“Food Freedom Day taking place only a day later than in 2022 will likely come as a surprise to many with the current context of rising food prices and overall inflation,” CFA President Mary Robinson said.“While Canada's food system continues to provide access to affordable food by global standards, inflation, global events and supply chain disruptions have led to sharp rises in price for food and other essential products, cutting into every Canadian's disposable income.”It acknowledged that the meaning of the average Canadian represented by the Food Freedom Day metric does not match the experiences and struggles many people faced last year with rising food prices.For that reason, CFA examined its food-price metric through the lens of the different income levels to show the impact of the higher food prices. Those in the lowest 20 per cent level of disposable income spent 23.1 per cent of their income last year on food and non-alcoholic beverages, up 2 per cent from 2021. Meanwhile those in the top 20 per cent spent 5.2 per cent of their income on groceries, almost unchanged from 2021.CFA said that food and beverage spending is fairly rigid. “Those households in the highest income quintile only spent 39 per cent more on food and beverages than the lowest income quintile, despite having over 500 per cent more disposable income. As can be seen, lower-income Canadian households are facing a heavier burden when it comes to rising food costs.”Higher food prices are no windfall for farmers who receive a small percentage of the price that consumers pay for food, Robinson said. “Rising retail prices are not normally reflective of what is paid at the farm-gate.“Farmers have seen their costs of production increase tremendously over the last two years, with many of their largest expenses, such as fertilizer and diesel, rising nearly 100 per cent during that period,” Robinson said. “With food prices rising consistently and more quickly than overall inflation, we cannot ignore the challenges that many Canadians are facing when it comes to food affordability. While our food costs are low when compared to global standards, Canadians are seeing their disposable incomes shrink as it is taken up by the increasing costs of essential products.”“It is only through investing in resilience throughout our entire food supply chain that we can create a system less vulnerable to disruption that can provide Canadians affordable food even in the face of global supply chain disruptions.”