Declining Number of Mid-Sized Farms Jeopardises Rural Institutions that Support Agriculture

A Policy Concepts Paper released by Agri-Food Economic Systems suggests the declining number of mid-sized farms in Canada jeopardises the rural institutions that have traditionally supported farms and farm families

A Policy Concepts Paper released by Agri-Food Economic Systems explores the potential consequences of the decline in the number of small and, especially, medium-sized farms.

Dr. Al Mussell, the Research Lead with Agri-Food Economic Systems and Research Coordinator with the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, notes 30 percent of Canada’s population was rural in 1931 but in a short period over three million people moved to urban areas without disrupting the food supply or increasing food prices.

“I think the bigger message to have is, is there an opportunity for people to work together in either renewing our institutions in agriculture or, in some cases, coming up with new ones that are more purpose built for the situation of today“

“I think what’s under appreciated is that we had rural institutions that allowed for this tremendous change without a collapse in our rural society.

“Am I worried about some sort of a collapse like that happening?

“I think it probably could happen but I think the bigger message to have is, is there an opportunity for people to work together in either renewing our institutions in agriculture in the rural areas to prevent that or, in some cases, coming up with new ones that are more purpose built for the situation of today.

“What can we do to work together to facilitate or support, particularly the middle-sized farm and the diversity in our agriculture that I think is really important for us?

“That may sound a little bit vanilla in terms of no obvious, “what should we work on tomorrow?”

“This is a complicated matter. I think people need to talk about it.
I don’t have the answers for this but I do think that there’s an opportunity to work together to find a way that we can support that diversity.”

Dr. Mussell stresses the answer is not to limit the growth of larger farms, but rather to take action to maintain those smaller farms.
For more visit agrifoodecon.ca or Farmscape.ca.

Farmscape is a presentation of Wonderworks Canada Inc.