OTTAWA — Off-farm income makes up 58 per cent of total income for Ontario farmers, according to numbers from Statistics Canada.
That number trails only B.C. (67.2 per cent) and Nova Scotia (59.8 per cent). The country as a whole was 50.3 per cent.
Those numbers are from 2015, which were released in March. The Agriculture Taxation Data Program uses taxation records to produce data on total income of farm operators. The estimates cover farm operators involved in a single farm: Either an unincorporated farm with total farm operating revenue equal to or greater than $10,000, or an incorporated farm with total farm operating revenue of $25,000 and over.
StatCan says based on 55,870 Ontario farm operators on 37,940 farms, $2.77 billion of $4.77 billion of total income came from off-farm income. That comes out to an average total income per farmer of $85,420, of which $49,580 came from off-farm income. This means the average net operating farm income per farmer was $35,843.
The off-farm income includes incomes such as salaries, investments and pensions.
