The Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI) has published the Competing Pressures on Land Use in Canadian Agriculture Report. It looks at the challenges Canada faces in managing, preserving and optimizing our agricultural lands. 

“Canada is associated with abundant land, but a relatively small share of it is suitable for food production,” said Tyler McCann, managing director of CAPI. “That land is at the intersection of the need to meet growing local, national and global demand, while taking action on climate change, biodiversity and other environmental issues and navigating increasingly volatile economic realities. This report shows that the land we think of as abundant is actually facing pressures from all angles.”

By looking at examples from around the world, this report looks at meeting those pressures through the intensification and extensification of agricultural land. Intensification involves boosting productivity from the same area of land, while extensification increases production by expanding the land used for agriculture.

“This report zooms out and covers agricultural land use from both a Canadian and international context,” said Margaret Zafiriou, report author and research associate at CAPI. “By learning from international experiences and case studies, we can find avenues for Canada to meet the agricultural land use challenges of today and tomorrow.” 

Quick Facts 

• In 2020, Canada was the 8th largest country in terms of cropland area

•  Farmland area fell from 64.2 M ha in 2016 to 62.2 M ha in 2021. Land in crops increased over the last decade, but tame and seeded pasture declined from 5.5 M ha in 2011 to 4.8 M ha in 2021. 

• Population growth, changing diets, rising prices and extreme weather are contributing to increased commodity prices, leading to higher land values and pressures on land conversion. 

• Policies and programs, including land zoning and payments for protection of sensitive systems are increasingly required to manage the pressures on agricultural lands. 

For the full report, link here: https://capi-icpa.ca/explore/resources/competing-pressures-on-land-use-in-canadian-agriculture-to-intensify-or-not-to-intensify-that-is-the-question/

Source: Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute June 8, 2023 news release