Total income of farm families

Average total income of farm families recorded its largest gain in 10 years, according to analysis of data from personal income tax returns.

Farm families saw a 6.5% increase in average total income to $66,270 in 2000. The increase came as a result of a 7.2% rise in average off-farm income and a 4.7% increase, after two years of decline, in average net farm operating income (before depreciation).

Net farm operating income was bolstered by increased payments from farm aid programs combined with higher livestock and product revenues as a result of strong demand. The rise in average off-farm income was largely driven by a surge in labour income.

Families running hog and pig farms posted a healthy 24.6% gain in average total income in 2000 and earned just over $73,000 - well above the average income of all farm families. This was mostly the result of average net farm operating income rising just over 50%, as hog prices continued to rebound from a dismal period in late 1998. Increased marketings of slaughter hogs also helped.

Families specializing in potato farming, beef cattle ranching, other vegetable farming and oilseed and grain farming saw the next largest percentage gains in average total income.

Families operating fruit and tree nut farms saw the largest decline, followed by greenhouse, nursery and floriculture production, then poultry and egg production. Despite a 2.3% decline in average total income, families running poultry and egg farms recorded the highest average total income for the fourth year in a row.

Only families operating smaller business farms, with revenues between $10,000 and $49,999, made less money in 2000 than the year before. Owing to a 9.9% decline in their average net farm operating income, those families saw their average total income fall to $38,431 in 2000, a 0.3% drop from 1999.

For the most part, families whose focus was business tended to rely slightly more on off-farm income in 2000 than they did in 1999. Their share of off-farm income, which includes employment, investment and pension income, government social transfers, child tax payments and the like, was just under 59% in 2000, up slightly from the previous year.

Families that operated non-business farms, on the other hand, saw their dependence on off-farm income drop from about 91% to 90%. Overall, income from non-farming activities accounted for about 74 cents of every dollar in farm family income in 2000, up slightly from the year before.

The publication Farm and off-farm income statistics (21-019-XIE, free) is now available on Statistics Canada's website (). From the Our products and services pages, under Browse our Internet publications, choose Free, then Agriculture.

For custom data requests, contact Client Services (1-800-465-1991; agriculture@statcan.gc.ca). For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Lina Di Piétro (613-951-3171, fax 951-3868), lina.dipietro@statcan.gc.ca), or Sylvana Beaulieu (613-951-5268, sylvana.beaulieu@statcan.gc.ca), Agriculture Division.