Canadain Agriculture

In the 17th century Samuel de Champlain and Gabriel Sagard recorded that the Iroquois and Huron cultivated the soil for maize or "Indian corn". [3] Maize (Zea mays), potatoes (Solanum tuberosum), beans (phaseolus), squash (Cucurbita) and the sunflower (Helianthus annus) were grown throughout agricultural lands in North America by the 16th century. As early as 2300 BC evidence of squash was introduced to the northeastern woodlands region. Archaeological findings from 500 AD have shown corn cultivation in southern Ontario.[4]

Eastern Canada was settled well before the West. Immigration and trading posts came later to Rupert's Land and the Northwest Territories. The early immigrants combined European agricultural and domestication procedures with the indigenous knowledge of the land and animals of the area.

As early as 1605, the French Acadians built dikes in the Maritimes for wheat, flax, vegetables, pasturage and marshland farming.[5] Dairy production is the main contribution of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island, along with livestock and mixed farming ventures, to the Canadian agricultural picture. A small percentage of land is put into use in fruit farming as well along Nova Scotia's North West coastal areas. The American Revolution, 1775-1783, and its attendant food decline resulted