What's new for 2011

Getting and returning your questionnaire

In 2011, for the first time, all farm operations received their questionnaires by mail through Canada Post rather than through a local enumerator. Operators either mailed back the form directly to Statistics Canada in the National Capital Region or completed and submitted an electronic form on the Internet.

New on the questionnaire

Many questions on the 2011 questionnaire were modified slightly from 2006 and are described in detail in the frequently asked questions. Some highlights are:

• 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."