GUELPH — Canadian farms least likely to make money are not small farms. They are farms with poor managers, suggests a George Morris Centre study.

The centre examined farms across the country and found that a farm’s location or the type of farming had no bearing on whether a farm could earn money, said researcher Al Mussell, at the Guelph-based agricultural think-tank.

So, what’s the deciding factor on who earns a profit? "The difference is management," said Mussell, adding that a study crunching the numbers couldn’t say whether bad managers are bad organizers or poor decision makers.

The study also found that bigger is not always better. "There were some very small farms that for their size were very profitable but there were some very large farms with sales over $1 million that were very unprofitable," he said.

While size mattered among the most profitable farms – the biggest farms got the biggest profits – small farms could also earn healthy profits.

The research centre looked at a range of farm types across Canada, separating them into four categories according to sales: 0-$100,000, $100,000-$250,000, $250,000-$500,000 and farms earning more than $500,000. Statistics Canada used income tax records and the Farm Financial Survey.

The result was a "tremendous variability in operating profit within a farm size category," said Mussell. "In fact, there was more variability within a size category than there was across farm sizes" or across farm types or regions. Suffice it to say, looks can be deceiving.