Agriculture


The Central Alberta region is one of Alberta’s top two agricultural regions.  It had total farm cash receipts of $1.75 billion in Census year 2006, accounting for 17.7% of Alberta’s farm receipts.  In that year, there were almost 10,500 farms in the region with a total acreage of 7.4 million acres or 14.2% of Alberta’s total farm acreage.  Average farm size was about 700 acres.

The region is the province’s largest producer of cattle, hogs and poultry: it accounted for 19% of the total value of on-farm livestock and poultry with a total market value of $970 million in 2006.  The total number of cattle and calves was 1.2 million.  Central Alberta’s share of Alberta’s total number of cattle and calves was 19%, of hogs 29.2%, and of hens and chickens 27.5%.

Cropland acreage totaled about 3.8 million acres, the largest acreage of the 14 regions.  The region is the province’s largest producer of barley, accounting for 21.5% of Alberta’s barley acreage, and of alfalfa, mixed grains, and fruits and berries.  It is also one of the top three regions for canola (15.5% of Alberta’s acreage), hay and spring wheat.

Very few current agricultural indicators are available for these special geographies.  However, livestock estimates are available for Census Divisions 8 (CD8) and 9 (CD9), which encompass most of the Central Alberta region1.  Between mid-year 2006 and mid-year 2011, the number of cattle and calves in CDs 8 and 9 declined by 29% and the number of hogs by 37%.

In crop year 2009-102, grain and oilseed deliveries at elevators in the Central Alberta region totaled about 1.35 million tonnes3, down 33% from 2008-09.  Wheat (excluding durum) accounted for 49% of the total tonnage, followed by canola (37%) and barley (11%).

Prices for canola and feed grain more than doubled between early 2006 and the summer of 2008, but fell sharply by about 40% through early 2009.  Crop prices rebounded strongly between spring 2010 and summer 2011, but recent global uncertainties have led to modest price declines during the past few months.  Prices for red spring wheat fell sharply in August and September, but recovered some of their losses in October 2011.  The recent weakening of the Canadian dollar against the US dollar will benefit Alberta crop and cattle growers.

In 2011, Alberta crop production was significantly higher than in the previous year, with record harvests of canola (4.8 million tonnes) and spring wheat (7.6 million tonnes).  Crop conditions in the Central Alberta region were also better than normal that year.

  1 A map of Agricultural Census Divisions can be found in: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/ca-ra2006/m/car-rar-eng.pdf
  2 Year ending August 31, 2010
  3 Deliveries at grain elevators are not representative of production as not all grain is shipped to local elevators

Date Updated:
RDP-2421