March can roar in like a lion, but the entrance of February 2008 was more like a snapping turtle.
It lumbered in with bitter cold that made everything brittle – trees, water, equipment, bones and, in many cases, tempers.
The shortest month often seems the longest around here. It must always have been so, because many special events take place in February of the type designed to lighten our winter burdens.
The laughably inaccurate Groundhog Day is followed by Valentine’s Day hearts and flowers. The government-mandated Family Day follows hard upon that, and somewhere in the mix there’s spring break, or whatever students call it these days.
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There’s another celebration in February that tends to get far less attention than these other holidays, and far less celebration that it deserves.
It’s Food Freedom Day, of course – the day the average Canadian consumer has earned enough income to pay the grocery bill for an entire year.
It occurred Feb. 3, on Super Bowl Sunday, when the Giants’ win was preceded and followed by much celebratory (or morose) eating and drinking of food and beverages produced by the nation’s farmers.
Barley for the beer? Wheat for the pizza crust? Meat for the pepperoni? Chicken for the wings?
All part of the agricultural service, thank you very much.
Food Freedom Day seems to be occurring earlier every year because, as the Canadian Federation of Agriculture explains, “in recent years Canadian disposable income has risen significantly faster than the cost of food.”
Think about the situation for a moment. Just over one month’s income for the average guy will pay for an entire year’s worth of food. It’s impressive in its illustration of Canadians’ good fortune.
Less impressive from a farmer perspective is the fact that the average consumer paid the farmers’ share of the annual food bill within the first three weeks of the year.
Nobody wants to pay more, but it may come to that if Canadians plan to continue their access to generous amounts of safe and yes, affordable food.
The American equivalent of Food Freedom Day is Food Check-Out Day.
It used to occur earlier than its Canadian counterpart, but this year it occurred two days later, on Feb. 5. That’s mostly because food costs rose about 5.4 percent there last year, compared to 0.6 percent in Canada.
Both Americans and Canadians spend about 10 percent of their annual disposable income on food and for most of us, there is always more than enough.
Think how much longer February would seem if that weren’t the case.
