By Mark Reusser, Director, Ontario Federation of Agriculture
For Ontario farmers, the arrival of the Census of Agriculture questionnaire this month comes during one of the busiest seasons of the year.
Spring planting is slowly getting underway, weather windows are tight, and there never seem to be enough hours in the day this time of year. Like many farmers, when I opened my census package, I certainly understood why some people might be tempted to put it aside for later.
But despite the busy timing, the Census of Agriculture is something farmers should take seriously because the information it collects plays an important role in shaping the future of our industry.
Governments have always needed reliable information about land, food production, and the people working the land. Versions of censuses date back about 6000 years to ancient Babylonia; in Canada the first census was conducted in 1666 in what was then New France.
Today, the census remains an important tool because it provides a snapshot of Canadian agriculture at a specific moment in time. It helps show what farming looks like today — how farms operate, what we produce, who is farming, and how agriculture is changing.
But perhaps even more importantly, it helps reveal long-term trends.
Those trends matter because they help governments, farm organizations, researchers, policymakers and others understand where agriculture is headed and where support or action may be needed.
For example, at the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, where I serve as a member of the board of directors, we often use the statistic that Ontario is losing an average of 319 acres of farmland every day.
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