Questions are asked on a variety of topics including farm land use, crops, livestock, paid agricultural labour, and land management practices. In 2001, any persons running an agricultural operation that produces one or more of the following agricultural products intended for sale will be asked to complete the Census of Agriculture questionnaire. The terms agricultural operation and operator are broader in scope than farm and farmer and better reflect the range of agricultural businesses from which the Census of Agriculture collects data. The Census of Agriculture collects data on a wide variety of agricultural products, from crops and livestock to maple syrup products, mushrooms, Christmas trees and furs. Although many of the agricultural operations enumerated during the census would fit most people s idea of a traditional farm, some exist that the general public, and even those involved in production, would not normally categorize or define as a farm.
Examples are a commercial poultry hatchery, or an establishment raising llamas or chinchillas.
Persons who run these businesses may not necessarily consider themselves farmers. To determine the content of the 2001 Census of Agriculture, Statistics Canada consulted with data users at a series of workshops held across Canada in 1998. Participants included Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada analysts, other public and private sector analysts, academics, and members of agricultural producer groups. The data user community was also surveyed by mail and asked to rate the importance of census questions. The results were tallied to provide a comparative measure of the support each question received.