Agriculture and fishing

Despite its huge area, most of it with very little population, only 6% of Canada is used for agriculture. In British Columbia this percentage falls below 2% while in the Northwest Territories and Newfoundland it falls to almost nothing. The Prairie provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba contain over 80% of all Canadian farmland but they do not comprise, as is often imagined, unending fields of wheat. There are large areas of cereal production in these provinces but a larger area, especially in Alberta, is used for livestock, particularly beef cattle. Farmers in these provinces have tried to vary the crops to avoid the dangers of concentrating purely on wheat and now produce barley, oats, maize and soya beans.

There are many similarities between the United Kingdom and Canada; farm size and employment in the two countries has followed the same pattern. In 1961, 12% of Canadian workers were employed in agriculture on farms with an average size of 145 hectares. By 1971, farm sizes had increased to 180 hectares but employment had dropped to 7%. The fall in employment has continued more steadily since then but in 1995, with farms averaging almost 245 hectares, only 3.5% of workers were engaged in agriculture.

In Quebec more than half the farms concentrate on dairy production. The province is also the largest producer in the world of maple syrup.

Traditionally, Canada has been one of the world's leading exporters of fish and fish products. This is now changing as fish stocks around the world are becoming depleted because of overfishing, particularly affecting the most famous fishery in the world, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. This formerly rich area for cod closed to fishing in 1992 for three years to allow stocks to recover putting 50,000 of the country's 114,000 employees in the industry out of work. The same methods may have to be applied in the future to salmon fishing in British Columbia where stocks are also diminishing.

Agricultural Land

Useful facts - Agriculture and fishing

• Canada produces 17% of all the wheat grown in the world.

• Almost half of the wheat produced, 49%, is exported to Asia.

• Employment in agriculture is 2.2% of all workers in Canada and 1.4% in the United Kingdom.

• There are 44 million cattle in Canada, compared with 12 million in the United Kingdom.

• Fur trapping and farming was an important industry until the 1970s when fur sales fell worldwide.

• Both British and Canadian fishing industries have been seriously affected in the 1990s by measures to prevent the destruction of fish stocks.

• Pie Chart showing division of
  agricultural land in Canada

Fishing boats in British Columbia