Though wheat has always been king on prairie farms, it has never been the only important farm product nor even the only important grain product in the West. This map depicts farm specialization. Each colour corresponds to an area where seventy percent of the farmers earn over half their income from one type of farming. The broad yellow band in southern Saskatchewan denotes the only region where wheat is the dominant crop. In the parkland belt of mixed plane and poplar trees, other grain crops such as oats, barley, rape, flax and rye are very popular. In this same area, and also in eastern Alberta and the Peace River country, coarse grain farming gives way to mixed farming, which combines crop growing with livestock. The Manitoba Interlake, the area around Cypress Hills in Saskatchewan, and the central district of Alberta are well known for cattle and sheep raising, and the irrigated plains of southern Alberta, as well as the warm, moist Red River Valley, are ideally situated for intensive crops such as sugar beets and sunflowers. Large dairy cattle operators can be found near the big cities.
In addition to illustrating the specialized nature of prairie agriculture, this map demonstrates that only a fraction of the prairie provinces is cultivable. Occupied agricultural land is limited to the southern quarter of Manitoba, to about three-fifths of Saskatchewan and a little less than one-half of Alberta.
A final implication to be drawn from the map is that the total production of the three main grain crops, wheat, oats and barley, differs from province to province, as does total grain production. Saskatchewan now produces the largest wheat and oat crops while Alberta raises the most barley. In each case, prairie production has constituted at least two-thirds of the national total since 1921.
Courtesy: Atlas of the Prairie Provinces (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1971) and National Film Board of Canada
