Agriculture

Agriculture is the Battle River region’s top industry on an employment basis.  The region had total farm cash receipts of $865 million in Census year 2006, accounting for 8.7% of Alberta’s farm receipts.  In that year, there were more than 4,400 farms in the region with a total acreage of 6.1 million acres or 11.6% of Alberta’s total farm acreage.  Average farm size was almost 1,400 acres.

The region accounted for 8.8% of the total value of on-farm livestock and poultry with a total market value of $439 million in 2006.  The total number of cattle and calves was 610,000, most of them beef cattle.  Battle River’s share of Alberta’s total number of cattle and calves was 9.6%, of hogs 7.4%, and of hens and chickens 12.5%.

Cropland acreage totaled about 3.1 million acres.  The region is the province’s largest producer of spring wheat, accounting for 18% of Alberta’s wheat acreage, and of oats.  It is also one of the top three regions for canola (17% of Alberta’s acreage), barley, mixed grains and field peas. 

Very few current agricultural indicators are available for these special geographies.  However, livestock estimates are available for Census Division 7 (CD7), most of which lies in the Battle River region1.  Between mid-year 2006 and mid-year 2011, the number of cattle and calves in CD7 fell by 6% and the number of hogs by one-third.

In crop year 2009-10 (year ending August 31, 2010), grain and oilseed deliveries at elevators in the Battle River region totaled 850,000 tonnes2, down 24% from 2008-09.  Wheat (excluding durum) accounted for 59% of the total tonnage, followed by canola (28%) and barley (10%).

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 Battle River region were also much 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
  2 Deliveries at grain elevators may not be representative of production as grain can be delivered at out-of-region elevators

Date Updated:
RDP-2418