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On May 16, 2007, Statistics Canada released farm and farm operator data from the 2006 Census of Agriculture. The release is the first of Statistics Canada’s planned data products relating to the Census of Agriculture. It will be followed in the fall of 2007 by the Agricultural Community Profile, which will provide free agricultural statistics on the Internet for census designated areas. Also, starting in the fall of 2007, Statistics Canada plans to release analytical articles on selected historical data at regular intervals on the Internet, and these will later be published in a book once all the reports are available.
The fourth and final release, scheduled for 2008, is the Agriculture-Population linkage, which matches operators with the information they provided on the 2006 Census of Population long-form questionnaires. This special database will allow the farm population to be compared with the general population for characteristics such as marital status, total household income, and level of schooling.
Statistics Canada conducts the Census of Agriculture to produce detailed, accurate and timely data on the agriculture industry in Canada and the provinces and territories. Canadian agriculture is constantly changing, and the census provides information on these changes. Data from the census are used by Statistics Canada to benchmark estimates of crop area, livestock inventories and financial numbers for the years between censuses. The census is also a unique source of data at the sub-provincial level of geography.
Most importantly, the Census of Agriculture provides a snapshot of Canadian agriculture every five years, as required by the Statistics Act of Canada. It uses a survey approach to capture data from all Canadian agricultural operations. The 2006 Census of Agriculture was conducted on May 16 of that year, and asked questions on a variety of topics, including farmland use, farm operator characteristics, crops, livestock, land management practices and paid agricultural labour. For the first time, in 2006, the census captured information on products that are organic but not certified, or are in transition to being certified, along with certified products and the names of certifying agencies. Also, notable among the new questions in 2006 were: a) farm-related injuries to anyone working on the farm (not just farm operators as previously reported), b) area of land irrigated by type of crop, and c) numbers of colonies of pollinating bees, in addition to honeybee colonies.
This special edition of the Agri-Food Statistics Update presents a detailed analysis of Statistics Canada’s May 16, 2007 release, with a specific focus on the Alberta data.
For a complete copy, please download the attached pdf file. |
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