The Managing Director of Canadian Food Focus says even though the number of farms in Canada has declined census data shows that family farms remain the dominant model.
An article circulated through canadianfoodfocus.org looks at "What it Means to Be a Family Farm in Canada."
Dorothy Long, the Managing Director of Canadian Food Focus, says the goal of the article was to explain in plain language what "family farm" means in the Canadian context, bridge the gap between farmers and consumers and help Canadians understand how their food is grown and raised and how it gets from the farm to their plates.
Quote-Dorothy Long-Canadian Food Focus:
Most farms in Canada are family operated.
Even though we overall have fewer farms and many of them are larger than they used to be, census data shows that family farms remain that dominant model.
When we talk about a family farm, we're talking about really who owns and manages the farm, not just how big it is or what its legal structure looks like.
In Canada and internationally, the term family farm refers to farms that are owned and run by individuals or families where the household and the farm business are really closely linked.
That is different from farms where ownership and decision making might sit with a non-family corporate entity or a collective structure that are separate from the household.
The key difference is whether a family is directly responsible for the farm, for its long-term decisions, for the risk, rather than what the size or whether the farm happens to be incorporated.
In Canada, some family farms are actually incorporated for business reasons.
Long suggests what this means for consumers, a significant share of Canadian food still comes from businesses rooted in families, in households, in communities, not these distant entities with no family connection.
To access the article, visit canadianfoodfocus.org and search "What It Means to Be a Family Farm in Canada."
Source : Farmscape.ca