18 Canadian Food Maps & Charts

Vox recently posted a list of 40 maps that explain food in the US.  At the time I thought, "Wouldn't it be great if someone did this for Canada?" and then decided that I might have to be that someone.  I don't have 40, but here's my best shot. The Vox piece had a lot of information about fast food restaurants, which I didn't think was worth posting about, so I didn't.

What I could not find maps for, and wish existed, would be Canada-wide maps of locations and density of Farmer's Markets, U-picks, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA's), and urban farming.

1. Canadian Living produced an interactive infographic of each province's most popular food products:

2. We love maple syrup, so much so that we put a maple leaf on our flag:

3. Canada produces 80% of the world's maple syrup:

4. Our culinary influences:

5. What do we produce?

6. Although we have an enormous landmass, not much of it seems to be that useful for food production. Notice how most of it is bunched up along our Southern border (other than the breadbasket of the Prairies).

7. We grow some specialty crops as well:

8-10. You can't grow food without the right soil, precipitation and temperature.  The next three maps show that information:

11. Farms are getting fewer and larger, and farmers are getting older.^Note, private investors and immigrant farmers."

"The structure of agriculture has changed significantly over the last two decades with fewer but larger farms. While there were 280,043 farms in 1991, according to the Census of Agriculture, by 2011, that number had gradually declined to 205,730.  Since 1991, the average farm area increased from 598 to 778 acres, while the number of farm operators decreased from 390,875 to 293,925, a 24.8% drop. Over the same period, the average age of farm operators increased, rising from 47.5 to 54.0 years.

Between 1991 and 2011, the number of operators under 55 years of age decreased from 265,495 to 152,015 while the number of older operators increased from 125,380 to 141,920. Chart 1 illustrates how the age pyramid is shrinking with fewer farm operators under 50 years old. The trends of fewer operators and fewer farms show no signs of reversing and could indicate significant turnover in farm assets in the future. As the number of younger farmers continues to shrink, it is also reasonable to expect that significant amounts of farm assets will be bought by remaining farmers (increasing the number of larger farms) or may also be purchased by beginning farmers."

12. Here are our top agricultural exports & imports:

13. But not everyone has equal access to our bountiful food production:

14. Canadian Food Networks - I'm part of Growing Food Security in Alberta!

15. Global Imbalance of the availability of Nutritious Food:

16. Backyard Chickens: There are many cities and towns in Canada that allow backyard hens.  Backyard hens keep down the weeds, compost your kitchen scraps, and provide eggs!

17. The percentage of the population with a body mass index of 30 or higher

18. O Canada!