Fields on Wheels casts eyes on food supply chain links

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This article was published 06/12/2024 (364 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Long before the words “supply chain disruption” became common parlance, Barry Prentice, a professor at the Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba, helped create its department of supply chain management.

Known for, among other things, his enthusiasm for the potential airships could have in opening up the movement of goods in the North, Prentice also organizes the annual Fields on Wheels conference that invites experts to focus on issue of agribusiness logistics.

This year’s (virtual) 29th conference focuses on food prices — an issue so important it may have decided the recent U.S. presidential election.

With experts like Sylvain Charlebois, a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, who will provide an assessment of trends in food prices and some issues resulting from a second Trump administration that could affect Canada, the conference will bring together a wide range of interests connected by agricultural supply chains.

Canada enjoys a natural advantage in the production of agricultural goods to trade on world markets.

In an open trading economy, the impacts of global events find their way home to the grocery store as much as to the farmstead.

Closer to home, there are also issues surrounding food security and food costs in the North that will be discussed at the free conference Wednesday. (Registration is open to the public at eventbrite.ca.)

Volker Kromm, executive director of the Thunder Bay-based Regional Food Distribution Association, will speak on increasing demand for food assistance and efforts in northwest Ontario to build food distribution capacity.

Kromm has been working with many in the region to try to develop a network so remote communities can operate something similar to urban food banks.

A while ago, folks from Pikangikum (about 100 kilometres north of Red Lake, Ont.) reached out to Kromm, asking why can’t they have access to food from the RFDA.

“I said, we just have to figure out how to get it to them,” Kromm said in an interview. “But the problem was, when we sent food to Pikangikum, there was no place to put it.”

Kromm is working in tandem with First Nations in the region that are putting together a bulk-buying group.

Adding to the high cost of transporting food to remote locations is the logistics of storage and distribution. Kromm said he’s made the mistake of shipping food stuffs to communities that had no capacity to handle it, resulting in waste.

He is in the process of building a $60-million expansion to facilities in Thunder Bay and a satellite warehouse in Ignace, 250 kilometres northwest.

“It’s my pilot project and about six more communities who say they want to get in on it,” he said.

“The idea is to have a few storage sites so that we could distribute food, whether it be charitable food or purchased bulk food.”

While the cost of getting food to the North is not coming down, Kromm said there is more funding available for capacity-building.

Meantime, Prentice has often noted a huge chunk of food inflation is a function of the supply chain.

“Something like an average of about 90 per cent of all the cost of food occurs beyond the farm,” the U of M researcher said.

“I like to tell my students the cap on a bottle of beer is worth more than the barley (inside).”

Prentice believes while the rise in the cost of food has been dramatic — maybe more so recently than in the previous 29 years — it’s just another impact of increased interest rates, energy costs and rising wages.

“It all adds to the supply chain expenses that have helped create the rise in food prices,” he said.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca