Farming Industry in Canada
All about the Land
Agriculture Issues Today
- Renewable or non-renewable?
- Can keep producing crops if it’s treated correctly, but there won’t ever be more new land being created / if land is destroyed by bad farming then it won’t replenish
- Land Capacity: ability of land to be used for a certain purpose (agriculture)
- Fig 22-2 breaks up each class, go over with class
- Very helpful in land use planning (1-6 may be used for some form of agriculture, but 1-3 are considered good farming capable of regularly producing cultivated crops, and only 1 is considered excellent farming)
- Fig 22-4 shows how much land is usable for each class of land, found within Canada
- Natural Factors: fertility of the soil, amount of precipitation, length of the growing season (pg. 269) etc.
- Economic Factors: cost of land, transportation costs, competition (pg. 269)
- Intensive Farming: common in densely populated areas (Ontario / Quebec), farms tend to be small but require large investments in labour and machinery to produce high profits per hectare
- Commonly produces fruits, vegetables, dairy, poultry, and hogs (perishable items)
- Extensive Farming: common in areas where the population density is lower and land is plentiful and less expensive (farms tend to be large so lower yields per hectare will still allow profit)
- Highly mechanized and requires few workers compared to intensive farming
- Raise either crops or animals, or both
- Common in the Prairie provinces and areas located away from major cities
- Includes cattle farming and ranching, grain and oil seed growing, and mixed farming (less perishable or processed quickly)
Agriculture Issues Today
- Mechanization: process whereby machinery takes over the work of humans or animals
- Farming is very expensive to start up and maintain, and since children of farmers now tend to go into other occupations, what happens to farms when the older farmers retire?
- Children don’t want to inherit them, and new farmers starting out often can’t afford the costs to purchase and start up a farm (500 000 to 1 000 000 dollars to start up)
- Agribusiness Companies: agricultural businesses, which include growing, storing, processing, and distributing food (may be owned by a large corporation, a family, or a local business). There are 2 types:
- Co-operatives: made up of several farmers who run the area like a business, with each farmer owning a portion of the farm and receiving a portion of the profits
- Money is pooled, equipment is shared
- Private/Public Companies: farmers may own their own land, raise live stock or grow crops that belong to a large company
- Vertical Integration: situation whereby a company owns and operates every process required to produce its product (develop the seeds planted, transport using their trucks, distribute through their own facility
Damaging the Land: soil is the most important agricultural resource, and is renewable as long as the land is taken care of
- Erosion: particular problem in B.C., because the water near rivers doesn’t freeze through the winter so heavy winter rains wash the soil away
- Summer Fallowing: the process whereby crops are planted and harvested one year, and then the fields are left bare for the next year
- Originally intended to help preserve the land, farmers later learned it was damaging the land instead by causing increased erosion, a reduction in fertility, and a buildup of harmful salts
- No-Till Cropping: an effective soil conservation method used across Canada
- Stubble left from the previous year’s crop forms a cover over the soil, holding it in space and protecting it from wind erosion
- Contour Plowing: a way to reduce the damage from water erosion
- Plowing across hilly fields, rather than up and down the slope of a hill to reduce damage caused by soil erosion (follow the natural curves of the land)
- Summer Fallowing: the process whereby crops are planted and harvested one year, and then the fields are left bare for the next year
- Contamination: farmers use chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides to increase their yields
- Herbicides: used to kill weeds
- Pesticides: kill insects that hurt the crops, but also kills useful insects as well (insects that kill bad insects)
- Can also be contaminated by smoke stacks and heavy metals from vehicle exhaust (can take years to break down naturally and leave the land)
- Encourages pest control techniques that reduces the use of agricultural chemicals
- As a city expands, the land becomes less profitable for farming, so farmers may desire to stay where they are as opposed to sprawling further outward
- However, farmers are being offered very lucrative amounts of money to sell their land to companies, who want the space for urban uses like housing and factories
- Orchard and vegetable growing areas cannot be replaced