Canada's Field Crop Producers Squeezed in 2004

OTTAWA - Dec 2/05 - SNS -- Average incomes for Canada's field crop producers were hammered lower in 2004 by a combination of rising costs and falling commodity prices; while livestock producers saw massive increases in average per farm net income as they benefitted from lower feed costs and improved markets for their products.

The net result, says Statistics Canada, is taxation records for 2004 reveal the average operating margins for all Canadian farms increased 15.5% to CDN $28,301 per farm.

Average operating revenues per farm increased 3.4% in 2004 to $209,519, up 13.0% in current dollars from the five-year average between 1999 and 2003. At the same time, average operating expenses went up 1.8% to $181,218. As a result, operating margins increased 1.4 cents to 13.5 cents per dollar of revenue, slightly under the previous five-year average.

The gain in average operating revenues was once again mostly due to an increase in average crop revenues. For the second year in a row, average crop revenues recorded growth of about 6%. Grain and oilseed revenues were up 7.4%, partly the result of increases in average canola (+23.4%) and barley (+14.1%) revenues.

Sales gains for fruits (+18.6%) and vegetables (+12.3%) also played an important role. In fact, average horticulture revenues, which include fruits, vegetables, and greenhouse, nursery and floriculture products, have been constantly increasing in the last three years, and were almost 30% higher in 2004 than they were in 2001.

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