Covering news in food and agriculture in 2025 |
As we enter a new year, it’s important to recall the year that was. With so much information coming and going through various channels, taking a moment to reflect on the major agricultural stories of 2025 can help move us into 2026.
This column space on rabble.ca has allowed for the chronicling of several actions, events, and initiatives that have generally not made the headlines during the year. Rural issues and food production is generally only covered momentarily, if at all, in legacy media. Alternative media, such as rabble.ca, an award-winning online space, is the exception.
In January of 2025, as the year opened, this space chronicled yet another misstep by the federal government when it comes to ensuring sustainable agriculture and rural communities. The column “The federal government empowers an oligopoly” outlined the final move to allow for the Bunge-Viterra merger, bringing full circle a network of corporate concentration that began many years ago with the dismantling and privatization of the Canadian Wheat Board. The Canadian Anti-Monopoly Project (CAMP) released a statement on hearing of the merger approval noting:
“The government’s approval of the Bunge-Viterra takeover is a loss for grain farmers that depend on competitive markets to get a fair deal for the fruits of their labour,” said Keldon Bester, Executive Director of CAMP. “The approval of Bunge-Viterra continues the march of consolidation at all levels of Canada’s food system that has left producers and shoppers with fewer options and less competition in an environment of steadily rising prices.”
Then as February and March rolled in, and the impact of the January 20 inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump took hold, many of us began thinking increasingly about sovereignty and sustainability.
The threat of tariffs, and later the application of tariffs, confirmed what many rabble readers have known for some time – that the Canadian economy has been tied far too closely to the United States and that free trade agreements have the subjugation of Canada written into clause after clause.. And so this column “Trump’s machinations could provide an opportunity to change the way we look at food” as well as the March column “Time........