Agriculture

Canada’s agricultural geography: what is farmed where, and how much of the land is cropland

How much of the land is cropland

This map shows land in crops as a share of each region’s total land area. It peaks in the southern Prairies and parts of southern Ontario and Quebec. The cropland falls away quickly toward the Shield, the mountains, and the North, where there is very limited farmland.

What is farmed where

Canadian agriculture is strongly regional. The map below shows the most common type of farm in each of Statistics Canada’s census agricultural regions from the 2021 Census of Agriculture. Oilseed and grain farming is the most numerous type across the Prairies; beef cattle operations lead through the Alberta foothills, the British Columbia interior, and much of Ontario and the North; and pockets of fruit, vegetable, and greenhouse production mark the specialty regions of the Niagara and Okanagan valleys. Switch hover on (top-left of the map) to see each region’s full farm-type mix — the share of every type, not just the most common.

Two caveats worth keeping in mind. “Most common” here means by number of farms, not by area or value. Many small operations can outweigh a few large ones. Also, dairy, which is important to the farm economy of Quebec and Ontario, is rarely the single most-numerous type in a region. As a result, it does not headline this by-count view. A broad “other crop” category (hay, maple, and mixed farms) leads across much of Quebec instead.

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