Changing Rural Demographics Threaten Rural Agricultural Supply Chains

The Research Lead with Agri-Food Economic Systems warns, Canada's shifting rural demographics pose a threat to the network that provides farms with goods and services. A policy concepts paper released by Agri-Food Economic Systems explores the decline in the number of small and, especially, medium-sized farms and the potential consequences of that decline.

Dr. Al Mussell, the Research Lead with Agri-Food Economic Systems and Research Coordinator with the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, fears these declines will alter the social structure of our rural communities.

Clip-Dr. Al Mussell-Agri-Food Economic Systems:

We have ag businesses spread throughout rural areas because traditionally you needed that network, whether it's feed or farm machinery dealers or what have you. That network was out in the rural countryside to be able to serve the customers because the customers were all going to be individually small and that's how that business operated.

But, as we depart from that and hopefully we're not departing too much from it but the data seems to suggest we are, more and more of the customers are just going to go straight to the  corporate headquarters to order their feed, vitamins, chemicals, machinery, go down the list, that connection to the local community I worry will erode and hopefully not be severed but that's the type of concern. There's others. Kind of a related point is liquidity.

The way our markets operate, spot markets, the notion of liquidity is I've got something to sell and I can find a buyer that wants to buy at that price, but there's enough other transactions in the market place that the act of me selling and that person buying doesn't unduly influence the overall market price. I feel like we're only scratching the surface here. I think there's a number of disruptive changes that we have to be prepared for.