Agri-census underway

By Gary Sliworsky
OMAFRA Rep.

The 2011 Census of Agriculture questionnaire contains questions asked in 2006 as well as new ones. Some questions remain unchanged to maintain consistency and comparability of data over time. Other questions have been added or deleted to reflect changes in the agriculture industry.
For example:
• Business Number: A question has been added to request the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) Business Number for the agricultural operation. In addition, a brief explanation of the intent of this question has been added to the back cover of the questionnaire. Using this data, a pilot project will evaluate the feasibility of replacing the financial information asked in Step 32 with CRA tax data, which could significantly reduce the response burden for farmers.
• Paid work: The number of employees working full or part time has been added in order to provide a measure of the number of people working on farms. This will significantly add to the picture of agricultural labour when coupled with the established questions on the number of hours or weeks of paid work on farms.
• Crop residue: A new step has been added to request the area from which crop residue was baled. This is an environmentally relevant question, as crop residue management affects erosion rates, contamination of surface and groundwater, greenhouse gas emissions, and carbon sequestration.
• Practices and land features: Two new questions have been added to identify agricultural operations involved in “in-field winter grazing or feeding” and “nutrient management planning.” These questions will provide more comprehensive data on farmers’ adoption of environmental
management techniques.
• Internet: A question on access to high-speed Internet has been added in order to evaluate the accessibility of respondents to services provided by Internet. This will assist agriculture service providers in the public and private sectors in planning service delivery to farmers.
• Farm-related injuries: These questions were removed because better quality data are available from alternative sources.
• Organic but not certified: This category was removed in order to reflect the new regulations on the use of the term “organic.”
The farming community should not expect any data until May, 2012.

Dates to Remember
April 16 – Spring Cattle Sale, Stratton Sales Barn.