More Farm Income Coming from Off-Farm Sources

Jan 31, 2022

The average total income of Canadian farm families declined slightly in 2019, while that proportion of income earned off the farm continued to tick higher.

A Statistics Canada report Friday showed the average income of family operating a single farm amounted to just over $163,000 in 2019, down 1.3% from a year earlier. All of the annual decline in 2019 farm income was due to a 5.4% fall in operating income to slightly more than $58,000. On the other hand, average off-farm income increased 1.1% to $105,032 from 2018 to 2019.

With the year-over-year increase, off-farm income accounted for 64.4% of the total income of farm families in 2019, up from 62.9% in 2018, 59.5% in 2017, 58% in 2016 and 60.2% in 2015.

For grain and oilseed operations, off-farm income contributed just over 58.2% or $106,618 of the average total income of $183,130. Off-farm income made up a whopping 83.9% of the total income on beef farms but just 53.6% for hog and pig farms (see table below).

The increase in average national off-farm income in 2019 reflected growth in most of its major components. Pension income (+5.7%) rose the most from 2018, followed by investment income (+2.1%) and total other income (+1.7%), StatsCan said.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.