Table 2.3

Symbols  Next table  Previous table

Farm area and settled areas in relation to Canada Land Inventory, by ecozone
Table Summary
This table displays farm area and settled areas in relation to Canada Land Inventory by ecozone. The row headers provide information by total and the eight ecozones with agriculture. The column headers provide information on dependable agricultural land, land with important limitations for agriculture, farm area on dependable agricultural land for 2001 and 2011, farm area on land with important limitations for agriculture for 2001 and 2011, and settled area on dependable agricultural land for 2000 and 2011 in hectares.
  Dependable agricultural land 1 Land with important limitations for agriculture 2 Farm area on dependable agricultural land Farm area on land with important limitations for agriculture Settled area on dependable agricultural land 3
2001 2011  2001 2011  2000 2011
  hectares
Total 50,534,922 4 74,413,254 36,796,533 35,826,731 23,410,939 23,772,487 1,173,824 5 1,393,335
Taiga Plains 35,776 1,623,948 48 469 1,562 1,422 10 10
Boreal Shield 2,705,419 8,193,591 378,384 368,866 314,973 345,454 68,986 73,226
Atlantic Maritime 3,746,182 5,942,430 624,649 668,190 693,864 754,836 135,137 145,673
Mixed Wood Plains 6,991,637 2,812,461 4,567,559 4,360,662 1,297,333 1,242,348 479,923 607,953
Boreal Plains 10,783,663 26,807,321 6,980,387 6,746,594 4,784,293 4,721,428 93,584 103,972
Prairies 25,996,677 19,215,318 24,159,266 23,592,406 15,429,313 15,596,043 365,275 425,082
Pacific Maritime 6 107,238 453,028 33,674 34,317 40,674 45,221 23,102 28,848
Montane Cordillera 6 168,329 9,365,157 52,566 55,226 848,927 1,065,736 7,807 8,572
Dependable agricultural land is land designated as Class 1 (no significant limitations), Class 2 (moderate limitations) and Class 3 (moderately severe limitations) by the Canada Land Inventory and includes all evaluated land areas that are not affected by severe constraints for crop production.
Land with important limitations for agriculture is designated as Class 4 (severe limitations), Class 5 (forage crops improvement practices feasible), and Class 6 (forage crops improvement practices not feasible).
Settled area is based on Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's (AAFC) 30 m land cover code for developed areas. Some northern areas only partially covered by the AAFC land cover were supplemented with estimates derived from Statistics Canada’s settlements data and AAFC's 30 m land cover (see Map 1, Appendix C in Statistics Canada, 2013, "Measuring ecosystem goods and services in Canada," Human Activity and the Environment , Catalogue no. 16-201-X for geographic coverage).
Total dependable agricultural land presented here differs from that in Hofmann, N., G. Filoso and M. Schofield, 2005, "The loss of dependable agricultural land in Canada," Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin, Statistics Canada Catalogue no.  21-006-X, Vol. 6, no. 1, due to differences in the projection selected and the reporting geography for the GIS analysis and the supplementary data sources.
Total settled area on dependable agricultural land presented here differs from that in Hoffman et al. (2005), due to the use of 2001 Census Enumeration Area (EA) files for the estimate of total settled area in Hoffman et al. (2005), while this study mainly used 2000 AAFC 30 m satellite imagery. See note 3 for further details.
Canada Land Inventory data for the categories dependable agricultural land and land with important limitations for agriculture have been supplemented with data from British Columbia's Agricultural Capability dataset (1:50,000) to address gaps in coverage.
Source(s):
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 1998, Canada Land Inventory, National Soil DataBase, http://sis.agr.gc.ca/cansis/nsdb/cli/index.html (accessed June 4, 2014). Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Statistics Canada, special tabulation, Census of Agriculture, Census Geographic Component Base 2001 and 2011. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 2009, Land Cover for Agricultural Regions of Canada (circa 2000), version 12, http://data.gc.ca/data/en/dataset/16d2f828-96bb-468d-9b7d-1307c81e17b8 (accessed October 9, 2012). Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 2012, 2011 AAFC Crop Type Map of Canada, ftp://ftp.agr.gc.ca/pub/outgoing/aesb-eos-gg/Crop_Inventory/2011/ (accessed October 9, 2012). British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Environmental Stewardship Division, 2013, Agriculture Capabilities geodatabase, www.env.gov.bc.ca/esd/distdata/ecosystems/Soil_Data/AgricultureCapability_50K/ (accessed June 4, 2014). Hofmann, N., A. Elgarawany, H. Larocque, G. Filoso and T. Dennis, 2010, “A new research project on Canadian settlements: initial geographic results,” EnviroStats, Vol. 4, no. 1, Statistics Canada Catalogue no. 16-002-X.
Report a problem on this page

Is something not working? Is there information outdated? Can't find what you're looking for?

Please contact us and let us know how we can help you.

Privacy notice

Date modified: