The P.E.I. Federation of Agriculture says it's not surprised at all by the province's farm income stats for 2020. Although cash receipts are at an all-time high, recent data from Statistics Canada suggests the total net farm income dropped considerably. Ron Maynard, the federation's president, said: "It was a challenging year for sure. In fact, we probably came out of it better than we had anticipated a year ago."
Statistics Canada claims that cash receipts have been steadily increasing over the past five years and jumped 9.3 per cent compared to 2019. "Prices were stronger in the potato market, there was a lower level of inventory across the country and across North America," Maynard told cbc.ca.
"Food prices have gone up like some other things in this COVID pandemic. With the COVID and the changes that we had to make to a lot of operations to be COVID compliant and the other thing of course was the drought last summer.”
That figure does not only account for potatoes. It also takes into consideration livestock revenue, which dropped, and cannabis.
Despite the welcomed increase in revenue, the data shows the total net farm incomes down around $30 million in the province. That being said, it's still the second-highest it's been in the past five years.
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