In a case of statistical whiplash, the average age of the Canadian farmer is up at the same time the country’s Census of Agriculture found a 3 percent increase in the number of farm operators under the age of 35. “This is the first time that there has been an increase in this age category since 1991,” said Statistics Canada, which conducts the census every five years.
The USDA will conduct its once-every-five-years Census of Agriculture at the end of this year. Its 2012 census said the average U.S. farmer was 58.3 years old, up 1.2 years from 2007 in a trend that began 30 years earlier. There were more minority-owned farms among the 2.1 million farms in the 2012 census than in the 2007 count. U.S. farmers are predominantly male. There were roughly 40,500 young and beginning farmers in 2012, an increase of 4,000 from 2007.
Stats Canada said the average farmer in Canada is 55 years old, compared to 54 years in the 2011 census. Roughly 45 percent of Canadian farmers are in the 55-59 year age group. The increasing age is due partly to the long-running shift to fewer, and larger, farms. Canada has 193,492 farms, down 6 percent since 2011. The average farm was 820 acres in 2016, compared to 779 acres in 2011.
The proportion of female farm operators in Canada is rising slowly; some 71 percent of the 271,935 farm operators are male. Women are 29 percent of operators. In 1991, their share was 26 percent.
“Although the under 35 age category is still dominated by male operators, the number of agricultural operations with only female operators under the age of 35 is growing at a faster rate than those with only male operators under the age of 35,” said Stats Canada. “The number of operations with only male operators under the age of 35 increased by 24 percent from 2011 to 8,734 in 2016, while the number of operations with only female operators under the age of 35 rose by 113 percent to 1,045. This data shows that both males and females are taking over agricultural operations from their retiring counterparts.” Male-only farms were most likely to be potato farms; women-only operations were most likely to be horse farms.