Agriculture

Agriculture is the South West region’s top industry on an employment basis.  The region had total farm cash receipts of $524 million in Census year 2006, accounting for 5.3% of Alberta’s farm receipts.  In that year, there were just almost 1,900 farms in the region with a total acreage of 3.2 million acres and average farm size was 1,670 acres.

The region accounted for 6.3% of the total value of on-farm livestock and poultry with a total market value of $314 million in 2006.  The total number of cattle and calves was close to 400,000, most of them beef cattle.  Its share of Alberta’s total number of cattle and calves was 6.2%, of hogs 6.3%, and of hens and chickens 5.3%.

Cropland acreage totals about 1.1 million acres, 9% of which requires irrigation.  It is one of the province’s largest producers of barley, accounting for 10% of Alberta’s barley acreage.  Its largest crops include barley, wheat and durum wheat, canola, hay and alfalfa.

Very few current agricultural indicators are available for these special geographies.  However, livestock estimates are available for Census Division 3 (CD3), which encompasses most of the South West region1.  Between mid-year 2005 and mid-year 2010, the number of cattle and calves in CD3 fell by one-quarter and the number of hogs by 10%.  However, livestock inventories returned to their pre-2006 levels in 2011.

The global economic crisis had a profound impact on crop prices.  Prices for canola and feed grain had 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 South West 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

Date Updated:
RDP-2429