Stats Can 2006 Census of Agriculture
Written by Coordinator   
Thursday, 09 August 2007

This year, Statistics Canada published three reports from its 2006 Census of Agriculture, that includes a breakdown by province.

Comprehensive information about agricultural operations across Canada and the people managing those farms is available in these reports. Snapshot of Canadian Agriculture looks at the products and people of Canadian farming. The Financial Picture of Farms in Canada reviews agriculture's performance from the perspective of small and large farms. Farming in Canada's CMAs profiles the farms that share space with urban areas in Canada.

Following is an article on these reports by Wayne Roberts, Project Coordinator for the Toronto Food Policy Council. He suggests "the days of food as usual are numbered". This article was written for the 24 May edition of Toronto's on-line Now Magazine 

Just in time for late May when crops can be planted without danger of frost, Statistics Canada released three agricultural reports, all frost warnings of a food security system in peril.
 
Don't expect any response from health officials. This is typical in a country that has no food policy and almost no medical or agricultural power brokers who respect food's centrality as a determinant of health.
 
But the stats tell us that the days of food as usual are numbered.
One report, The Financial Picture Of Farms In Canada, issued May 16, confirms
the deep dysfunction of a $42-billion-a-year farm economy in which 44.2 per cent
of farmers lost money last year a crisis level of failure in any industry, let
alone one that produces goods essential to survival.
 
Almost 10 per cent of farms went out of business between 2001 and 2006. Less
than half the remaining 230,000 farms put enough food on the table to keep the
farmer working full-time on the land; many subsidize their farms by working 40
hours a week or more in other jobs.
 
The trend to family farm extinction comes through loud and clear in a second
report, Snapshot Of Canadian Agriculture. The average farmer is 52 years old,
five years older than the average age in 1991.
 
Anyone young enough to try something else is getting out while the getting's
good. Fewer than 30,000 farmers are under 35, a drop of 25 per cent since five
years ago. Since that's the group most likely to have children, it's clear the
days of the family farm are numbered.
 
Fewer and older farmers are working more land; the average farm grew from 273 to
295 hectares since 2001. These demographics have no future. Old farmers with
bigger farms to run aren't looking for new crops that require a lot of bending
and duck-walking, farm-transforming methods such as organic, or new and
under-supplied market niches serving recent immigrants.
 
Farmers who have just finished 40-hour weeks at their day job aren't looking for
a chance to pick weeds and shoo-fly pests rather than apply herbicides and
pesticides. And fewer farmers with fewer kids means the hollowing out of
small-town infrastructure.
 
Another trend that spells food-supply trouble has to do with concentration.
Fewer than 6,000 farms now account for 40 per cent of farm gate sales, a
disturbingly small number of places if 30 million people start wondering where
their next local meal might come from.
 
This is not a system designed with any regard for resilience, surge capacity,
robust response to crises or due diligence by politicians and health officials.
 
Alert health officials might also be alarmed by another trend. There's little
relation between what Canadian farmers grow and what Canadian health guidelines
say people should eat. The government puts $4.8 billion a year into programs
that fund farmers, but there's no sign that one of those dollars is attached to
any directive about enviro or dietary health goals. About half of Canada's farms
raise livestock of various kinds, beef cattle way out ahead, and about 40 per
cent raise field crops (wheat, hay, canola, feed corn, etc), much of which goes
to feed livestock or, more recently, to fuel cars.
 
Only 5.5 per cent of farms produce fruit and veg. Sweet corn, tasty but devoid
of many nutrients, takes up a quarter of the land devoted to fruit and veg, and
potatoes, most destined for heart-dumb French fries and potato chips, take up
much of the rest. The best fruit lands are devoted to grapes for wine, said to
be good for the heart but bad for cancer, and displace apples and tender fruit,
good for both.
 
You'd never know, in short, that Canada's Food Guide was drawn up by the same
government and paid for by the same taxpayers who fund and support contrary
products in agriculture. I think "two solitudes" was the phrase a novelist once
used to describe this Canadian trait.
 
Another trend is identified by the third StatsCan report, Farming In Canada's
CMAs  [census metropolitan areas]. Canada has the good fortune to have 35,000
farms within 33 urban districts, such as the greater Toronto area. With luck,
these could feed urbanites during an emergency (think avian flu or SARS, for
example) that kept California, Florida and Chicago food trucks from crossing the
border.
 
It might even be wise to partially fund diverse farms near cities on an
insurance principle. Why don't we pay food security insurance just as we insure
against theft, fire and flood damage to property? Our money could go to keep
farmers on near-urban lands, with an insurance fee supporting their efforts to
grow diverse crops.
 
Instead, what grows near cities is what covers the high price of near-city land.
Thus, we have a big increase in near-urban greenhouses, a little less than half
of which produce flowers, not veggies.
 
StatsCan notes that landscaping nurseries on 69,000 acres export irreplaceable
topsoil and sod to city lawns. Horse farms account for most near-urban
livestock, especially near Toronto and Calgary. Like most pets, horses are
raised for recreation rather than meat.
 
The value-added of alcohol means climatically blessed areas near St. Catherines
and Kelowna are mostly growing wine, not tender fruit. There are almost no mixed
farms and few dairy, poultry or egg farms near cities. Unless there's a big
change in thinking, we're going to be missing meals in a crisis.
 
Canada's 3,555 certified organic farms, 60 per cent new since 2001, seem like
good news. But the greatest portion of organic land is devoted to prairie grains
destined for export to Europe. Sure, organic is the growth segment in food
retail, but most of this, especially fruit and veg and processed goods, comes
from California, so the premium prices go south.
 
To buck this trend, the recent Ontario budget gave $200,000 to help all Ontario
organic farmers fight the California competition in their home market. To put
that in perspective, $200,000 is half the estimated water irrigation subsidy for
each and every large exporting farm in California, according to estimates by the
Environmental Working Group.
 
For the people in charge of agricultural policy, some things never add up.
 
NOW MAGAZINE www.nowtoronto.com
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MAY 24 - 30, 2007 | VOL. 26 NO. 38
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