Carol Baldwin
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Wakaw Recorder
Farm Credit Canada (FCC) announced that their partners in the agriculture and food industry in Canada more than doubled their contributions to the Drive Away Hunger campaign of the previous year, donating 514 million meals in 2024.
Drive Away Hunger is an effort to connect the food produced with the people who need it the most. Farmers, processors, distributors, grocers and others donate products and money to food banks and other food security agencies nationwide. They share knowledge, connections and resources to increase donation reach and reduce food waste.
Justine Hendricks, FCC president and CEO, announced the campaign’s results at the Future of Food conference in Ottawa on February 11.
“This year’s amazing results are a testament to the hard work and unwavering dedication of Drive Away Hunger partners across the agriculture and food industry in Canada,” she said. “The industry has united through Drive Away Hunger, and the sheer number of meals donated highlights the considerable impact of this collective effort.”
More people than ever are facing food insecurity in Canada. They worry about running out of food; they compromise on food quality or skip meals due to a lack of money or access. Yet over eight million tonnes of surplus edible food is wasted in Canada yearly, enough to feed 17 million people, close to half of Canada’s population. (Statistic: Second Harvest Canada)
The HungerCount 2024 report from Food Banks Canada revealed over two million visits to food banks nationwide in March last year. FCC’s goal is to encourage more collaboration and innovation to get food to those who need it and address important issues like food waste.
“Drive Away Hunger demonstrates the power of industry collaboration, connecting nutritious food to those in our communities who are in need,” said Hendricks. “By rallying together, giving generously and looking for new solutions, we are creating change. We continue to be motivated by our goal of eliminating food insecurity in Canada.”
The annual HungerCount is Food Banks Canada’s signature report documenting food bank use in Canada. It is a cross-sectional census survey of most food bank agencies, organizations, and programs within and outside the Food Banks Canada network. The HungerCount provides a point-in-time snapshot of food bank use in Canada. The 39 reporting food banks in Saskatchewan reported a total of 52,877 visits during March 2024, and 20,473 of those were children. This does not include the number of people who are receiving food aid from small food banks, like the Wakaw Lions Food Bank, which are not part of the Food Banks Canada network.
It took 25 years before food banks reported one million visits per month. Within the past five years, they have reached another benchmark, recognizing an additional 1 million visits per month. That milestone was reached in one-fifth of the time it took to reach the first milestone. This rate of growth is not sustainable for either food banks or people in Canada.
Food banks across the country have been ringing the alarm bells about a crisis spiralling out of control. The situation has continued to worsen, and there has been no sign of urgent action to counter it. In 2024, as Canadian food banks reached that record-breaking two million-plus visits to food banks, it represented an increase of 6 percent compared to the previous year and nearly 90 percent higher than in 2019. The proportion of children under 18 accessing food banks continues to hold steady at 33 percent, but with the overall volume of visits increasing, this means approximately 700,000 children across the country rely on food banks.
Based on a national survey of food banks affiliated with Food Banks Canada, conducted between May 16 and June 23, 2024, in the previous 12 months, nearly 30 percent of food banks across the network reported running out of food before the demand was met, and another 56 percent gave out less food than usual to avoid running out. In 2021, these numbers were 10 percent and 20 percent, respectively. Food banks’ capacity is not infinite. Supply cannot keep up with a near doubling in demand over five years. Every day, more people in Canada are slipping into poverty and food insecurity. Every day, food banks wonder how much more they can handle.
Food Banks Canada believes that a dual-path approach is the way forward. Governments need to rapidly introduce income policies that will provide much-needed relief for the millions of people struggling. And the social safety net that has been increasingly damaged by decades of neglect needs to be repaired. Workers on low incomes, single adults, and renters are among the groups who deserve better support systems. Everyone must come to the table to solve this problem. Food banks cannot do it alone.
In its HungerCount report, Food Banks Canada states the “cumulative impact of inflation has further eroded the purchasing power of people in employment, including many whose incomes are above the official poverty line. Eighteen percent of food bank clients report employment as their main source of income, compared to 12 percent in 2019. …There has been a significant increase in two-parent households with children under 18 accessing food banks — this group has grown from representing 18.8 percent of food bank visits in 2019 to nearly 23 percent in 2024.” (HungerCount 2024, Buckling Under the Strain)
Despite being above the official poverty line, certain types of households were more likely to experience food insecurity. These include households in which the major income earner was female; individuals under 44 years old; lone parents; households with five or more people; unemployed all or part of the year; full-time or part-time students; individuals who are Indigenous or racialized; recent immigrants; individuals whose main source of income is government transfers; and renters in subsidized or non-subsidized housing.
The highest food bank usage on record coincides with the highest food insecurity rate on record. In 2022/2023, nearly 23 percent of people in Canada, 8.7 million people, lived in households experiencing some level of food insecurity, an increase of nearly 1.8 million people compared to the year before. People with the lowest incomes, which includes those receiving provincial social assistance, spend over 80 percent of their disposable income on food and housing alone. As non-negotiable costs such as rent absorb more and more of this group’s disposable income, food takes a backseat and the likelihood of needing a food bank increases. Provincial social assistance, which includes both the general welfare and provincial disability support income streams, is the primary source of income for nearly 40 percent of food bank clients. Social assistance incomes are still so low that all household types on this form of income live below the poverty line in almost every province and territory.
A community-based research participant experiencing food insecurity in Saskatchewan shared, “Rent is more than half of what I have been taking in, so that causes me to really reassess what kind of foods I can [eat].” The threat of tariffs and the impact they will have on the economy will only add to the stresses being experienced by those in the lowest income brackets.
