Farmers can be forgiven for seeing irony in the recent census debate. While the federal government has decided the mandatory long form of the census should be replaced with a voluntary version in 2011 because the former method invades Canadians’ privacy, it plans to retain the mandatory agriculture census.
The government evidently has no equivalent concerns about the privacy of Canadian farmers.
It’s not that farmers are complaining about it, however. But if the average Canadian had to answer the 197 questions that farmers face on their mandatory form, there would be a hue and cry to make this recent debate look like a 4-H club meeting.
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As it is, relatively few Canadians complain about having to fill out the longer form. Statistics Canada reports that it has handled about 50 complaints in the last 20 years, and only two about the last census in 2006.
Farmers show a similar lack of formal complaint, even though the time involved to fill out the agricultural census can be onerous. The 2011 version is due for delivery in May, not the most ideal time to capture farmers’ attention.
If you haven’t seen or can’t recall the 2006 agricultural census, note that it asks about: farm and off-farm work, in hours; farm-related injuries; operating arrangements (i. e. partnership, limited corporation); land owned, leased, rented and crop shared; crops grown, acres farmed; wages paid; fuel burned; number and type of livestock owned; manure produced and used; farm machinery and equipment owned and leased, with approximate value; the value of fertilizer, herbicides, feed, seed, veterinary drugs and electricity used and building repairs completed; and a tally on gross receipts.
The 2011 version promises to be much the same, though federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz has suggested efforts will be made to ease the process.
Most farmers see the value in collection of detailed agricultural information and during this recent census debate, farm groups have noted their support for its continuation. They say it is an important tool in devising farm policy and programs.
Statistics Canada puts it this way: “Census data gives all players in agriculture an equally reliable source of information. Farm organizations, government departments, agriculture service providers and academics all depend on the Census of Agriculture to understand and respond to change in agriculture,” it wrote on the 2006 questionnaire.
Farmers aren’t complaining, nor is the general populace with regard to the existing mandatory long form that goes to one in five households.
With social media allowing people to share even the most private and mundane details of their lives, the privacy argument seems specious. And Statistics Canada has a privacy policy superior to that of Facebook.
Reliable data, which Canada has been collecting since its colony days in 1666, is a hallmark of developed countries with robust market economies.
As an agricultural example, Canada’s figures on seeded acreage and projected crop production vary little from those of independent sources. But in Russia right now, the government report of grain production varies by more than 10 million tonnes from estimates in private trade. This makes it impossible to predict the amount that will be available this year and the price at which it will sell.
Accurate information drives the market and drives economies in agriculture and in other sectors. It shapes policies by providing government with facts essential to serving citizens.
If abolishing the mandatory long form of the general census will harm the accuracy of collected data – as virtually all statistical experts say it will – then it should be retained.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen and D’Arce McMillan collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
