1

Changes to the Renewable Fuel Standard Program

Aggregate Compliance for Canadian Crops and Crop Residues

Data Analysis and Justification for 2012

1.0 Census of Agriculture 2011 Data

1.1 The 2011 Census of Agriculture was conducted on May 10, 2011 and the data were 

published on May 10, 2012. The results obtained from the compilation of the 2011 Census of 

Agriculture data show that in 2011 Canada had 92.6 million acres of cropland and summer 

fallow, and 13.7 million acres of tame or seeded pasture, a reduction of 5.4% and 2.8%, 

respectively, from 2006 (please see the Census2011 worksheet of the attached Excel file 

AnnualReport_Data_2012.xlsx). The data for 2011 and 2012 will be revised later this year 

following the census trend.

1.2 The Census of agriculture does not collect data on agricultural land area under 

conservation practices, except that for wetlands combined with woodlands. The acreage for 

wetlands and woodlands in 2011 decreased 8.8% compared to 2006. For other conservation 

practices, binary data on various conservation practices are collected and the data on the 

number of farms reporting conservation practices are published. In 2011, the number of farms 

reporting conservation practices decreased in all categories and the overall rate of decrease

was higher than the rate of decrease of the total number of farms.

2.0 Cropland and Summer Fallow

2.1 Estimates from the 2012 field crop surveys, some of which are preliminary, indicate a 

increase in the acreage for field crops and specialty crops from 63.9 million acres reported in 

2011 to 71.9 million acres in 2012. This increase is mainly due to increased seeded areas of 

wheat, canola, barley and dry field peas. 

2.2 The areas in specialty crops, hay1and forage and summer fallow, however, decreased 

in 2012. The acreage for hay and forage is estimated to be 20.1 million acres in 2012, a slight 

decline from 20.2 million acres in 2011. The summer fallow area shows a significant decline 

from 10.5 million acres reported in 2010 to 4.6 million acres in 2012. The estimated land areas

for fruit and vegetables, and for nursery, sod and Christmas tree, however, remain unchanged 

at 0.5 million acres and 0.2 million acres2, respectively, as in the previous year.

2.3 Adding up the acreage for all crops and summer fallow, the total cropland and summer 

fallow area in 2012 stands at 97.3 million acres.

 

1

 The land area for hay will not be estimated and published until December 5, 2012. Therefore, the area 

has been estimated based on last 6 years published data (please see the HayEst worksheet of the 

attached Excel file AnnualReport_Data_2012.xlsx).

2

The land areas for Christmas tree, sod and nursery are taken from the Censuses of Agriculture and 

trended over the years between the censuses.
2

3.0 Tame or Seeded Pasture

3.1 The annual surveys of field crops and hays (as mentioned in Section 3 of Canada’s 

petition, page 4) do not collect information on land area segregated for tame or seeded pasture 

(pastureland)3. In order to obtain tame or seeded pasture acreage in 2012, the data on tame or 

seeded pasture area were obtained from the last 6 Censuses of Agriculture from 1986 to 2011

and analyzed for trend. The acreage of tame or seeded pasture for these census years were 

regressed on a constant and a simple linear time trend. The adjusted R-square value of the 

regression, which is a measure of the goodness of fit and the power of the model in predicting 

future outcomes, is 0.9193. In other words, the regression coefficients are capable of explaining 

about 92% of the variability in the data.

3.2 Estimates (Estimate_1 on the worksheet “PastureEst” in the attached Excel file) for the 

years between census cycles are derived by adding the immediate past census year’s data to 

the coefficient of the time trend (T) distributed over the years between two successive census 

years (i.e., the coefficient divided by 5). Following the standard practice of benchmarking 

survey estimates for the census years with the census data, the census acreages for tame or 

seeded pasture are kept unchanged as benchmarks. 

3.3 The annual estimates thus derived have not been smooth over the years. Therefore, a 

second set of annual estimates (Estimate_2 in the attached Excel file) is derived by distributing 

the difference in acreage between two successive censuses over the years within the two 

censuses. In distributing the differences between 2001 and 2006, both current and immediate 

past period’s differences have been accounted for at a ratio of 2:1 to keep the estimates at a 

lower level. This factor has been used for extrapolating the acreage beyond 2006 to derive 

Estimate_2 for the years 2007-2010. While the same factors have been used to derive the 

estimates for 2012, an additional standard deviation has been deducted from the estimates to 

minimize the divergence of the projection from the 2011 census number. As evident in Chart 2 

in the attached Excel file, the Estimate_1 and Estimate_2 virtually overlap in all years except the 

periods 1994-1995, 2004-2005 and 2009-2010, and tend to diverge slightly at the end (i.e., in

2012). To avoid higher and lower estimates, a simple average of Estimate_1 and Estimate_2 is 

taken to derive Estimate_3, which has been used in this Annual Report.

3.4 Based on the model estimate, the total area for tame or seeded pasture in Canada was 

13.8 million acres in 2012. However, in view of a general trend of declining crop acreages and 

cattle numbers, the actual area of tame or seeded pasture is expected to be lower than the 

model estimate.

4.0 Agricultural Land under Conservation Practices

4.1 Estimates for agricultural lands under conservation practices are obtained from the 

FEMS data. As noted earlier, the FEMS is conducted every five years. The last FEMS was 

conducted in 2007 for the reference year 2006 and the data were released in 2008. While the 

next FEMS is scheduled for 2012 for the reference years 2011, the data will not be released 

until 2013. An analysis of the 2007 FEMS data shows that in 2006, Canadian farms had an 

estimated 9.8 million acres of agricultural lands under conservation practices. 

 

3

 Annual crop survey data on land for pasture, which includes several categories of land in pasture (such 

as tame/seeded pasture and rangeland), does not segregate pastures by type.
3

4.2 The 2011 Census of Agriculture data (released on May 10, 2012) reveal that the number 

of farms reporting conservation practices decreased at a higher rate than the total number of 

farms in Canada. Based on the census data, it can be rationally assumed that the amount of 

agricultural lands under conservation practices in 2011 did not increase compared to 2006. 

Therefore, the estimate for agricultural lands under conservation practices derived from the last 

FEMS (9.8 million acres) has been used for 2012. 

5.0 Total Agricultural Land in 2011

5.1 Summing up the acreages in 2.3, 3.4 and 4.2 above, the total agricultural land in Canada 

in 2012 is estimated at 120.9 million acres. This total agricultural land area includes 97.3 million 

acres of cropland and summer fallow, 13.8 million acres of pastureland and 9.8 million acres of 

agricultural land under conservation practices.