The demographic overlap of agriculture and rural : Chevauchement démographique de l'agriculture et du milieu rural

In other countries, some commodities receive a price subsidy – sometimes to ensure national self-sufficiency of the commodity, sometimes to ensure an adequate supply of the commodity for the processing sector and sometimes with the stated objective of ensuring a “fair standard of living for farmers.” ♦ Where is the overlap or intersection of agriculture and rural? [...] As a consequence of the improvements in transportation technology and the relative decline in the price of transportation, a considerable share of agricultural production now takes place in areas that are not rural – i.e. [...] The CMA and CA include the residents of surrounding incorporated towns and incorporated municipalities where 50 percent or more of the workforce commutes to the core of the CMA or CA. [...] Thus, for example, suppliers of inputs to the farm sector would be expected to “capture” some of the subsidy and owners of farm land (37 percent of farmland in Canada in 2001 was not owned by the operator) would be expected to “capture” some of the subsidy. [...] Within the OECD, one-half (53 percent in 2000) of the agricultural workforce is employed in predominantly rural regions – the remaining one-half of the agricultural workforce is employed in intermediate or predominantly urban regions (Table 2).