Agriculture

The North Central region had total farm cash receipts of $413 million in Census year 2006, accounting for 4.2% of Alberta’s farm receipts.  In that year, there were just over 3,100 farms in the region with a total acreage of 2.2 million acres.  Average farm size was 720 acres.

The region accounted for 5.3% of Alberta’s total value of on-farm livestock and poultry with a total market value of $266 million in 2006.  The total number of cattle and calves was 345,000, most of them beef cattle.  The North Central region’s share of Alberta’s total number of cattle and calves was 5.4%, of hogs 5.9%, and of hens and chickens 6.0%.

Cropland acreage totaled 1.1 million acres or 4.7% of Alberta’s cropland.  The region’s major crops include barley, oats, spring wheat, alfalfa, hay and canola.

Very few current agricultural indicators are available for these special geographies.  However, livestock estimates are available for Census Division 13 (CD13), which consists mostly of the North Central region1.  Between mid-year 2006 and mid-year 2011, the number of cattle and calves in CD 13 declined by 15%, while the number of hogs declined sharply by 47%.

In crop year 2009-10 (year ending August 31, 2009), grain and oilseed deliveries at the Westlock elevator in the North Central region totaled about 130,000 tonnes2, down 26% from 2008-09.  Wheat (excluding durum) accounted for 76% of the total tonnage, followed by canola (15%) and barley (9%).

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 North Central region were slightly 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 are not representative of production as not all grain is shipped to local elevators

Date Updated:
RDP-2423