Paul Martin's Business News February 19th, 2014

Paul Martin's Business News February 19th, 2014

For as long as I can remember, conventional wisdom suggested the average age of a Saskatchewan farmer was 58. I’m not even sure where the number came from but it also didn’t seem to matter how many years went by – the number always stayed the same.

StatsCan has analyzed a wide range of data about farmers drawn from the 2011 census. We still don‘t know the average age but it is becoming less and less of a young person’s game. Nationally the number of farms, where the oldest operator was under 40, dropped by 75 per cent in the ten years leading up to the census.

And in this province, 54 per cent of farmers are over the age of 55. Interestingly that is slightly below the national average. Only Quebec and Manitoba saw a smaller percentage.

These data offer up a fairly straight forward analysis. Farms are getting bigger requiring fewer operators. But given the age of the largest cohort, StatsCan suggests retirements will lead to further consolidation or, possibly, producers having no option but to sell to immigrants to newcomers to the industry.

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