Workshop on Farm Income Measures

Workshop on Farm Income Measures

This Workshop on Farm Income Measures was organized jointly by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Statistics Canada. The workshop took place on March 5 and 6, 2007 in Ottawa, Ontario at the RH Coats Building, Simon Goldberg Conference Room. This technical workshop was organized to provide an opportunity for experts in the farm income area to discuss issues related to current farm income measures and identify options to better describe the economic well being in agriculture.

The workshop objectives were threefold:

  1. Promote a better understanding of current package of farm income measures, in particular an appreciation of limitations and gaps.
  2. Generate ideas and options for improving existing measures and developing new measures for extending the package of indicators.
  3. Develop recommendations and a framework for implementing the changes.

Participants included officials from USDA and the European Union, members of the agriculture economic academic community, Statistics Canada’s Federal-Provincial-Territorial Committee on Agriculture Statistics who are also involved in farm income forecasting, Statistics Canada’s Advisory Committee on Agriculture Statistics, and senior analysts from STC and AAFC participated.

The workshop consisted of a one and a half day meeting with the first morning set up as a plenary session with four key note presentations. The first two presentations were a joint paper by AAFC and Statistics Canada, which described the current package of farm income measures, defined limitations and discussed issues from a policy perspective. The third presentation provided a more conceptual discussion of what should be measured to adequately reflect the well being of the agriculture sector. The fourth presentation described the experience and recent changes in developing farm income measures in the USA. Discussants provided comments on each paper.

The afternoon session consisted of four sub-groups which debated assigned subjects in detail and developed specific ideas for changes and improvements. The assigned topics covered were:

  1. Potential Improvements to Aggregate Farm Income Series and Integrated Accounts
  2. Potential Improvements to Micro Level Data and Tools
  3. New Farm Business and Industry Measures and Tools
  4. New Farm Family and Social Measures and Tools

Each sub-group had a chair and a rapporteur.

The second morning began with a presentation from each sub-group on their discussions, conclusions and recommendations.  From these presentations an overall set of recommendations and a framework for further progress was prepared.  This file includes all the papers and presentations, comments of the discussants, a summary of the recommendations, as well as the agenda and list of participants.

Current Farm Income Measures and Tools: Gaps and Issues

Better Concepts for Describing Farmers' Income

Farm Income Measures: US Experience and Recent Developments

Recommendations

Agenda

List of Participants

For more information, please e-mail: Econ_Research@agr.gc.ca.