Comparative analysis of the socioeconomic characteristics of foreign and native born farmers in two areas of British Columbia.

The purpose of this study was to determine the extent that birthplace influences the socio-economic characteristics or the usage of sources of information in samples of farmers from two areas of British Columbia. Two areas of divergent farm types namely the Peace River and South Okanagan areas were chosen for analysis from the sixteen areas surveyed by the ARDA Canada Land Inventory Project in British Columbia. Interview schedules completed in 1967 and 1968 surveys of these areas were used as the source of data. Excluded were all those respondents who sold less than $250 worth of agricultural goods produced on the land they occupied. The Peace River sample consisted of 112 farmers of whom 27.7 percent were foreign born while the South Okanagan sample consisted of 61 farmers of whom 50.8 percent were not born in Canada. The majority of the statistically significant differences in distribution of the socio-economic characteristics and use of information sources among the groups by birthplace of the Peace River were attributable to the age differences between the groups, due to the areas settlement history. There were very few statistically significant differences in distribution noted among the groups of farmers of the South Okanagan. Further there were few differences among the groups by birthplace between the areas studies that could not be attributed to geographic differences between the areas. The results of this study would suggest that place of birth does not strongly influence the socio-economic characteristics or usage of information sources in the two areas studied.Land and Food Systems, Faculty ofGraduat