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Introduction
This web page contains farm level price and volume data for
all major organic crops grown in the three Prairie Provinces.
The data was collected by the Saskatchewan Research Council
(SRC) as part of an initiative by the University of Saskatchewan,
the Organic Agriculture Center of Canada (OACC), and Saskatchewan
Crop Insurance Corporation, to improve the availabilty of
organic price information on the prairies. The web page contains
summary tables for Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba, as
well as the three provinces in aggregate. A description of
the methodology used by the SRC is also available.
Note: Information is aggregated to ensure
that the confidentiality of individual farmers is not compromised.
Background
In the mid to late 1990’s, the Saskatchewan Research
Council (SRC) created an entity called the Organic Product
Information Service (OPIS) to conduct surveys on a bi-monthly
basis for the purpose of obtaining price information and to
determine the availability of organic crops. Data was collected
from all three Prairie Provinces, with the majority being
collected from Saskatchewan (~ 70%). The mandate of OPIS was
to establish linkages between producers and buyers of organic
commodities. Survey information was tabulated, summarized,
and made available to all entities holding OPIS membership.
OPIS has since ceased to exist, as buyers have developed their
own producer lists and price databases (SRC, 2002).
For the past several years the SRC has been commissioned
to conduct a survey of Saskatchewan organic farmers on behalf
of SCIC with the objective of obtaining price and volume information
that can be used as a benchmark for determining the value
of insured organic crops. As an incentive to enhance participation
in the survey, SRC has distributed a summary of survey results
to all participating farmers. For confidentiality reasons
this information has not been made available to the public,
and has been used exclusively by SCIC.
As the organic industry in Canada continues to expand,
there is an increasing need to establish an annual dataset
of farm level price information. Not only can this data be
used by SCIC to update their current price information but
producers across the prairies can also use it as a benchmark
for determining if they are receiving market value for their
crops. In addition, price information is a valuable tool for
assessing the overall performance and structure of markets
and for making predictions about market performance in the
future.
2006 Price Data:
2005 Price Data:
2004 Price Data:
2003 Price Data:
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