Key takeaways:
- Tony DeLuca, a 29-year employee at MacArthur’s nurseries in Moncton, said he’s never seen such a surge in demand for products that allow people to grow their own food.
Tony DeLuca, a manager at MacArthur’s nurseries in Moncton for 29 years, said he’s never seen such a high demand for products that allow people to grow their food.
“In the last couple of years, seed sales have probably doubled or more than doubled.” Vegetable transplants, for example, have increased significantly,” he said in an interview on Saturday.
He claims that the trend has accelerated in recent years due to the pandemic’s uncertainty.
When the season begins next month, he expects even more demand, he said.
“This year, we’re seeing it in the seeds again.” We see a lot of demand, and it’s difficult for us to keep everything in stock.”
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That doesn’t surprise Sylvain Charlebois, director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab.
“Gardening, for example, is making a comeback. People are looking for different solutions, so life basics are coming back into fashion.”
WA Action and Urban/Rural Rides, 2 New Brunswick poverty reduction non-profits, have created a Facebook group to crowdsource simple, cost-effective recipes.
On Saturday, Lauren Fawcett, director of WA Action, said, “What’s interesting is that food costs, no matter what your budget is, it’s affecting you.”
She hopes that, in addition to the practical benefits of the Facebook group, it will make people feel less alone in their struggle to keep their grocery bills under control.
“It’s not going to necessarily change market prices that we see,” Fawcett said, “but it’s a small way for communities to come together and support one another in a distressing time.”
In the past, rapidly rising costs, according to Charlebois, have changed attitudes about food and how not to waste it.
“Before COVID-19, the average household spent about nine or nine and a half percent of its budget on food. “It was more like 15-20% in some cases in the 1970s or 1960s,” he said.
He believes that the pre-pandemic abundance and variety of food will not be replicated anytime soon in Canada.
“We’ve indulged for several years only to realize that we may have taken food for granted.”
Source: Global News
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