Agricultural Trade Reform, Reallocation and Technical Change: Evidence from the Canadian Prairies

36 Pages Posted: 25 Sep 2017 Last revised: 10 Mar 2023

See all articles by W. Mark Brown

W. Mark Brown

Statistics Canada

Shon M. Ferguson

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) - Department of Economics

Crina Viju

Carleton University - Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies

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Date Written: September 2017

Abstract

We decompose the impact of trade reform on technology adoption and land use to study how aggregate changes were driven by reallocation versus within-farm adaptation. Using detailed census data covering over 30,000 farms in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada we find a range of new results. We find that the reform-induced shift from producing low-value to high-value crops for export, the adoption of new seeding technologies and reduction in summerfallow observed at the aggregate level between 1991 and 2001 were driven mainly by the within-farm effect. In the longer run, however, reallocation of land from shrinking and exiting farms to growing and new farms explains more than half of the aggregate changes in technology adoption and land use between 1991 and 2011.

Suggested Citation

Brown, Williams Mark and Ferguson, Shon M. and Viju, Crina, Agricultural Trade Reform, Reallocation and Technical Change: Evidence from the Canadian Prairies (September 2017). NBER Working Paper No. w23857, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3042415

Williams Mark Brown (Contact Author)

Statistics Canada ( email )

Ottawa, Ontario
Canada

Shon M. Ferguson

Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) - Department of Economics

Box 7013
Ulls hus, Ulls väg 27
Uppsala, 750 07
Sweden

Crina Viju

Carleton University - Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies ( email )

Ottawa, Ontario
Canada

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