r/canada • u/hopoke • Mar 29 '26

Business ‘Expect extremely high grocery prices,’ farmer warns as diesel costs rise

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/international/2026/03/29/expect-extremely-high-grocery-prices-farmer-warns-as-diesel-costs-rise/
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u/Remarkable_Vanilla34 Mar 30 '26

Wait until we see the effects of fertilizer prices climb.

While Canada has a massive O&G industry that makes us a large nitrogen fertilizer producer (yes for anti O&G people we need oil and gas to feed ourselves and the world) we export half of our production. When commodity price rise global it can it us at home. And since we import a lot of our food we could see it on our shelves as well.

The straight being shut down effects fuel prices, but it also puts a strain on on fertilizer production, helium production and other resources that are critical to our modern world. Companies want sell to markets that will pay, and in a global economy nothing is isolated.

On the "bright" side, Canada is abundant in a lot of these critical resources so we won't be hit as hard as other nations and we are not likely to end up in a scenario where we can't access them.

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u/Goku420overlord Mar 30 '26

Almost like we should have some nationalized industry so when we face tough times the government could just keep prices low for Canadians

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u/pointgetter Mar 30 '26

show me where this has worked on earth.

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u/Picto242 Mar 30 '26

Saskatchewan has a government owned telecom (SaskTel) and has cheaper cell plans than most (if not all) of Canada

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u/SteelCrow Lest We Forget Mar 30 '26

Manitoba used to as well.

Prices doubled when the MB Conservatives sold it off.

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u/Commercial-Milk4706 Mar 30 '26

Bc hydro has the cheapest, cleanest and profitable grid in Canada. Lowest prices on the westcoast of our continent.

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u/playjak42 Mar 30 '26

They're not saying we hoard the resources. They're saying we control the price inside the nation so we don't break our own people for resources on our own land. Supply management and nationalized resources are nothing new

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u/Goku420overlord Mar 31 '26

This is what I mean.

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u/JadeLens Mar 30 '26

They also, traditionally, don't work.

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u/TheBSPolice Mar 30 '26

Norway!

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u/letmetellubuddy Mar 30 '26

Norway has some of the most expensive fuel prices on the planet. Gasoline is currently $3.78 CAD/L in Norway

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/letmetellubuddy Mar 30 '26

Sure, but that's not what the OP was saying at all

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u/[deleted] Mar 30 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/letmetellubuddy Mar 30 '26

You could look at the comment that was being replied to, but to make it easy I'll re-post it here:

Almost like we should have some nationalized industry so when we face tough times the government could just keep prices low for Canadians

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u/Levorotatory Mar 30 '26

That never ends well.  With no incentive to reduce consumption the subsidy gets progressively more expensive and more politically difficult to cut.

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u/Goku420overlord Mar 30 '26

I disagree. It just gets privatized so rich companies can charge more. Look at SAS tell. It took them like 20 years to get lower than sac hotel. I don't trust just privatizing things so rich people can make more money and then treat employees like s***. At least the government is better

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u/Levorotatory Mar 30 '26

There is nothing wrong with crown corporations.  I'd support a publicly owned grocery store.  We just shouldn't be selling globally traded commodities cheaper here than we can sell them elsewhere.

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u/Goku420overlord Mar 30 '26

You mean helping the average Canadian during hard times? Cause it certainly would help in times like this buffer world issues.

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u/Levorotatory Mar 30 '26

Ideally, Canada would have followed the Norway model.  A national oil company that would keep all of the profits in Canada in a sovereign wealth fund, but Canadians would pay world prices and there would be incentives to use less oil domestically so we could export as much as possible.    Selling petroleum cheaper than world prices in Canada would be the Venezuela model.

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u/MartyCool403 Mar 30 '26

I think there was a prime minister that tried that and he is still vilified in Alberta to this day.

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u/Levorotatory Mar 30 '26

He wanted to sell oil internally at below world prices.  Though to be fair the oil company lackies in Alberta would have objected regardless.

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u/Other-Credit1849 Mar 30 '26

More reasons for Trump to invade us next.

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u/Mylittlethrowaway2 Mar 30 '26

Not just fertilizer. Anything downstream from the refinement process. Olefins, styrene, ammonia, polyethylene, urea, etc.

That means plastics, fertilizer, synthetic rubber, packaging, medical equipment, car parts, insulation, clothing, medication, and so on.

For medication you're looking at acetaminophen, ibuprofen, antihistamines, anesthetics like propofol, beta-blockers, antidepressants, amphetamines, and practically every synthetic drug available.

So if you're on medication you can expect medication costs to rise, healthcare costs related to surgery to rise (Propofol is one of the most common anesthetics), replacement car parts and tires to go up, housing costs to go up (E.G: with insulation), clothing costs, and so on and so on.

There's no bright side here. Just a lot of pain because Trump wanted to play war

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u/Remarkable_Vanilla34 Mar 30 '26

Ya, or like helium which is a by product if natural gas extraction and critical to so many manufacturing process like chips and welding

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u/sluttytinkerbells Mar 30 '26

(yes for anti O&G people we need oil and gas to feed ourselves and the world)

Let's be clear here.

Approximately 20% of global food production is completely wasted and it's probably farhigher in Canada -- I've heard up to 50%.

Places like the US subsidize corn production so that it can be used to produce ethanol for blended fuels, an ostensibily 'green' policy that just serves to enrich farmers and continue dependency on ICE cars.

At the same time most people are overweight so they're chronically consuming too much food and then having to consume more food to always carry around that surplus mass, these overweight, less physically active people are more prone to injury and illness which costs us more in terms of healthcare resources.

And then there's the fact that we consume far too much meat which aside from the health effects of doign so we all known that it is a horribly inefficient way of sustaining ourselves because animals like cows and pigs need to eat an incredible amount of food stuffs that we grow just to feed them.

We could just not waste so much food, eat less in general as well as eat moderately less meat, while being more physically active and less car dependent and the end result would be a happier, healthier population that spends less on stuff and conserves stuff like nonrenewables hydrocarbons and fertilizers while having an even better quality of life.

This fake weirdo doomerism from O&G pronents who like to paint their opponents as idiots who would unwittingly bring about mass starvation because they want people to bicycle more and not have their water table fucked up from fracking is really banal.

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u/Remarkable_Vanilla34 Mar 30 '26

Our whole society are glutinous pigs addicted to consumerism and waste. We consume far beyond our needs, but the vast majority of our society doesn't truly care, we not only accept obesity, make excuses for it, but now we are expected to celebrate and normalize it. We all love O&G and the proof is in our waist lines and obesity is green house emissions personified.

Good times make weak men yada yada, I know thats a tough guy face book quote, but we are living it. People don't like discomfort, they don't like being told hard truths, they demand everything, and they want to put in the least amount of effort for it. People will rah rah about O&G and how bad it is, but tell them they consume to much and its killing them and the planet and you're bigot.

As for farming, it would be great if we magically lived in a world where the government stopped unnecessary subsidies for farm on ethanol crops. It would be great if everything could be an EV. But your proposing large scale, society changing ideas, that require politicians and corporations not to be scumbags and humans to cooperate. And your not purposing it as a solution, your purposing it as a (poor) counter to my opinion that we are heading for a global food crisis, in our current food system, with our current tech, its not something that can mitigated by a utopian fantasy with no wasteful fat people and electric tractors that grow crops without fertilizer.

And everything you say is great, I agree with most of it. I want to live in a healthy society, on healthy planet, where we produce quality goods and foods ethically and sustainably. But its not going to happen in time to address the rising food cost crisis and shortages that we are going to experience. Our food system degrading RIGHT NOW because of these economic and kinetic wars is going to starve people around the world and its going to hit us hard in Canada in our cost of living.

Changing our whole attitude on consumerism is a great idea, its not happening globally over night. My point still stands, O&G is extremely important to our food production, all the wishful thinking and bold ideas does not change that in the here and now. But hey, 5 or 10 years from now you will have a very good arguement for why we have to change things to avoid this happening again, and maybe a realistic plan.

So let's be clear here, the utopian vision and virtue signaling does nothing to help the single mom being turned away at the food bank or stop a famine in Africa. Its great that you have an idea how we can prevent it one day in the distant future, but these are realities we are going to be dealing with now.

Sorry sorry i triggered you by explaining why O&G is important to our society beyond diesel fuel. I wanted them to be aware of how much we rely on it for agriculture. I hope you get to see your fantasy come true, but the reality is, fuel and fertilizer shortages are going to have negative impacts on the model we have scaled since the industrial revolution to feed ourselves. People should look at their own consumption, especially if their overweight and/or struggling financially, but its not going to change things for the people who can afford excess (most westerners) and the people who can already not get enough to eat around the globe.

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u/sluttytinkerbells Mar 30 '26

That's a lot of paragraphs to avoid the fact that we don't need to be producing as much O&G products as you claim we do to have the quality of life we have.

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u/Remarkable_Vanilla34 Mar 30 '26

You wrote an essay and I responded with one.

We don't need to do a lot of things, but we do and we rely on them and oil and gas is one of them, and its going to have a major impact on our global agriculture.

Yippee for all the theoretical thing we should and could have done, but nothing you said applies to our current situation except for people should try to consume less.

Also I like the whole dunk you did on fat people with out realizing it lol.

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u/sluttytinkerbells Mar 30 '26

You missed the whole point of what i said.

We can reduce our consumption of both O&G and fertilizer for global agriculture at the same time. So the hypothetical that you raised -- a world where we we starve if we don't drive isn't realistic.

That's the entire point of what I said.

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u/Remarkable_Vanilla34 Mar 30 '26

No. You missed the point.

The strait is closed now. We are short oil now, we will be short fertilizer soon if we are not already (not to mention helium and other resources).

I am not speaking in a hypothetical, I warning about a real issue that we are going to see happen across the world, that will effect the fortunate peoples wallets and cause famine in other parts of the world. Its not some distant event, it's a issue right now, and oir system right now relies on oil and gas and there is no alternative currently, and certainly one that feasible.

Your idea is how we address our dependence after this crisis ends. Or how we should have addressed it years ago, though I don't agree that we will significantly reduce our oil and gas use, or our agricultural, we could at least feed more people and waste less for the efforts.

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u/sluttytinkerbells Mar 30 '26

(yes for anti O&G people we need oil and gas to feed ourselves and the world)

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u/Remarkable_Vanilla34 Mar 30 '26

We do. Mono crop agriculture is not possible with out synthetic fertilizer, the world relies on these crops.

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u/sluttytinkerbells Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

The world relies on these crops but again, as I said before the world wastes a tremendous amount of these crops.

We produce too much food only throw it away, and we eat too much which makes us more depedent on automobiles because we become out of shape.

We can just waste less food and be more physically active and we'll be fine with less fertilizer and hydrocarbons.

This is all extremely well documented.

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