Are you facing a mountain of farm debt? Are you leaving farm debt behind to the next generation? How do you feel about the future? We want to know what you think. Take our short survey, share your comments on Twitter using #AgDebt, or send your thoughts to and we’ll share the results in an upcoming post.

For the 23rd consecutive year, Canadian farm debt has hit a new record. While the debt load across Canada is severe, it is particularly high the West, the breadbasket of the country.

Since 1971, farm debt has increased in each of the four western provinces. Here are current totals:

• British Columbia: more than $6 billion
• Manitoba: more than $8 billion
• Saskatchewan: more than $13 billion
• Alberta: close to $20 billion

Much of the debt load increase has come in the last five years. In Manitoba and B.C., outstanding farm debt has increased more than $1 billion in the last five years. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, outstanding farm debt has increased more than $5 billion in the last five years.

As I outlined in this Currents piece, farm debt is just part of the bargain when you own a business in an industry that relies directly on market prices and the weather. However, in the last few years the dizzying levels of debt have been raising concerns that what was a necessity has grown into a “ticking time bomb.”

Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. While the staggering amount of debt is an important part of the story, what is even more important is how farmers are dealing with it.

Statistics Canada can give us a few clues. For starters, the number of both lifestyle farms and pension farms in western Canada have increased dramatically [1]. These types of farms are income-supplemented: Lifestyle farms are when one or more of the operators have an off-farm income to supplement the farm income; pension farms are when one or more of the operators have a Canadian pension to supplement farm income. More and more families are turning to off-farm income to take the heat off their operating loans.

Supplementing farm income is helpful to some but not enough for others. A substantial number of farmers in western Canada do not have a supplementary income for the farm.

Share your story about how you’re handling farm debt or what you see taking place for the industry in the future:

On Twitter: #AgDebt

– Sarah Pittman is a research intern

[1] Statscan CANSIM table 002-0029