Canadians Think Government Should Support Family Farms With Environmentally-Friendly Livestock Production Systems Rather Than Large Corporate Farms

Toronto, ON - According to a new Ipsos-Reid survey conducted on behalf of the Council of Canadians, a strong majority of nine in ten Canadians (89%) agree with the statement "the agriculture policies of federal and provincial governments should support family farms with environmentally-friendly livestock production systems rather than large corporate farms," with nearly six in ten (58%) who "strongly agree."

These are the findings of an Ipsos-Reid/Council of Canadians poll conducted from March 30th to April 1st 2004. For the telephone survey, a representative randomly selected sample of 1000 adult Canadians was interviewed by telephone. With a sample of this size, the results are considered accurate to within 177 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what they would have been had the entire adult Canadian population been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population. These data were statistically weighted to ensure the sample's regional and age/sex composition reflects that of the actual Canadian population according to the 2001 Census data.

Nine in ten Canadians (89%) agree with the statement "the agriculture policies of federal and provincial governments should support family farms with environmentally-friendly livestock production systems rather than large corporate farms" (31% "somewhat agree", 58% "strongly agree"). In comparison, only one in ten (9%) disagree with this statement (6% "somewhat disagree", 3% "strongly disagree"). The remaining 2% of respondents "don't know."

• Regionally, residents of Alberta (92%) are the most like to agree with the statement "the agriculture policies of federal and provincial governments should support family farms with environmentally-friendly livestock production systems rather than large corporate farms," followed by residents of British Columbia (90%), Ontario (90%), Atlantic Canada (89%), Quebec (87%), and Saskatchewan/Manitoba (83%).

• Women are more likely than men to agree that "the agricultural policies of federal and provincial governments should support family farms with environmentally-friendly livestock production systems rather than large corporate farms" (92% vs. 86%).

  Please open the attached PDF to view the factum and detailed tables.

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  For more information on this news release, please contact:
  
  Darrell Bricker
  President and C.O.O.
  Ipsos-Reid Public Affairs
  (416) 324-2900