2001 Census of Agriculture
Agriculture-Population linkage data

   Canada’s farm population continues to decline, dropping from 851,410 people in 1996 to 727,125 in 2001.

   In Canada’s farm population, immigrants are a declining proportion of a declining population — the opposite of the general population.

   Between a third and one-half of immigrant farmers from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany, the three most frequent countries of birth for farm immigrants, came to Canada before 1961.

   In 1995, the characteristic gap favouring average family income in the general population over average farm family income temporarily closed, but reopened in 2000. The average total income from all sources for all farm census families in 2000 was $64,160, 3.2% lower than the $66,263 received by census families in the general population.

   Net farm income contributed only 18 cents of each dollar earned in total family income for 2000, slightly lower than in 1995.

   Eight out of 10 people in the farm population identified themselves as either Protestant or Roman Catholic, somewhat higher than the seven out of 10 in the general population. Less than 1% of the farm population are members of a major non-Christian religion, compared with 6% of the general population.