Andrew McClelland, Advocate Staff Reporter, June 2017
Canadian agricultural producers know that when the census rolls around every four years they have more forms to fill out than the rest of the population. But all that form filling late at night at the kitchen table has been collected by the folks at Statistics Canada. And it paints a vivid portrait of how farming in Canada is changing. As everyone in the business knows, farms in Canada are getting fewer—but larger. The number of farms in Canada has decreased since 2011—when the last Census of Agriculture was conducted— but the acreage of farms has increased.
The average size of a Canadian farm in 2016 was 820 acres, compared to 779 acres in 2011. The highest percentage of farms are still small and hobby-sized to medium-sized. The majority of Canadian farms are between 10 and 69 acres, with 32,036 falling into that category, while another 9,089 farms are 3,520 acres or larger. Total farm area is measured at 158.7 million acres, with 93.4 million acres used for crops.
The data counted 193,492 farms across the country, down from 205,730 farms recorded in the 2011 census. That means there are fewer farm operations being run in Canada all the time.
The farmers themselves
While there may be fewer farmers on the whole in Canada, there are signs that younger farmers are on the rise nationally.
According to Statistics Canada, 271,935 people identified themselves as farm operators in 2016. That total number is down from 2011, but the number of farmers under 35 appears to be increasing. A total of 24,850 farmers across Canada are 35 years old and younger, up from 24,120 in 2011.
“This was the first absolute increase in this category of operators since 1991,” Statistics Canada said in its release. The governmental agency noted, however, that key operators on the farm are still aged 55 and older, in keeping with the general population’s rise in age.
“The average age of operators— individuals who make management decisions for the agricultural enterprise—edged up from 54.0 years in 2011 to 55.0 years in 2016,” Statistics Canada said. “This trend parallels the aging of the general population.
Among Canadians aged 15 to 64, the share of people aged 55 to 64 years old (all baby boomers) reached a record high 21.0 per cent in 2016.” There are 77,970 female producers in Canada. Women account for an increasing share of farm operators, rising from 27.4 per cent in 2011 to 28.7 per cent in 2016. In the 2016 Census of Agriculture, 77,970 women were listed as farm operators. Women were most prevalent among farm operators aged 35 to 54 years (30.7 per cent), followed by those aged 55 and older (27.7 per cent) and those under 35 years of age (26.4 per cent).
Quebec in the census
Quebec has long been its own agricultural entity with regards to the rest of Canada. For instance, the province boasts hosting 90 per cent of all the maple taps in the country, and it has more pigs than any province at 4.5 million head in 2016.
Quebec counted having 28,919 farms during the census, a drop by 1.8 per cent from 2011. That’s better than the national average rate of decrease of 5.9 per cent. From 2011, total farm area fell by 1.9 per cent to 8.1 million acres in 2016. All in all, agricultural operations in the province employed 55,866 people in 2015.
La belle province also counted a drop in the number of dairy cows to 347,038 head in 2016. Grain was the largest grown crop.
Off-farm work
Of course, the census reveals that a huge portion of Canada’s farmers supplement their farm work with off-farm jobs. The survey found that 44.4 per cent of all farm operators did some off-farm work. Just over 3 in 10 operators worked an average of 30 hours a week or more off the farm. British Columbia had the highest incidence of off-farm work, as well as the highest proportion of farms with total sales under $10,000. Just over half (51.1 per cent) of farm operators in British Columbia reported receiving a wage or salary from another job or operating a business unrelated to the farm.