Why Canada's Ecozone Challenges To The Agricultural Industry

Canada's ecozones are split up based on a number of factors, such as climate, precipitation, or flora and fauna. So, each ecozone presents different challenges to the agricultural industry.
For example, The Taiga Plains had absolutely no farmland in 1971, and even in 2011 the ecozone remained an outlier with only 8 930 acres. In comparison, the ecozone with the second smallest amount of farmland, The Pacific Maritime, had 158 831 acres, which is about 19 times larger than the amount of farmland in The Taiga Plains. The Taiga Plains occupy a large portion of Canada's Northwest Territories and small parts of eastern Yukon, northern Alberta, and northeastern British Columbia. The ecozone is notorious for having cool, short summers and harsh, long winters.
There is very little rainfall, permafrost is widespread, the land is rocky, and forest fires are common.
Not even the native people who have occupied this ecozone throughout history have dared to start large farms there. I assume that, for a farm to survive in such a harsh climate, a farmer would have to overcome a huge financial risk. So, the reason why farms have been able to start operating in the ecozone between 1971 and 2011 is because large farming companies can afford the risks involved with using Canada's cold, undeveloped land. Smaller farms that lack resources and employees would struggle to deal with the weather conditions, let alone operate in complete isolation.
Meanwhile, The Prairies are another outlier, with its total farming area occupying almost three times the amount of land as The Boreal Plains, which is the ecozone with the second largest farmland area. The Prairies stretch along southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Before humans started to develop farms on the land, The Prairies were mostly composed of flat
grassland and wetland. However, due to the land's fertile, nutrient-filled soil, settlers quickly covered the land in crops. Today, about 95% of the land in the ecozone is composed of farmland. Still, despite the agricultural industry's prominence, the ecozone still holds plenty of urban land. Some of Canada's most populated cities, such as Edmonton, Calgary, and Winnipeg, reside in the area. So, due to the ease of growing crops and the proximity to major urban centers within the ecozone, it should be relatively easy for an independent farmer to settle in The Prairies. However, that idea is assuming that a farmer can find unavailable land to begin with. Again, 95% of Prairie land is farmland. Most of that farmland is already occupied by farms that can afford to keep their land; so, it's hard for farmers to find land to settle on unless they buy out another farm. So, due to the ecozone's continuously expanding urban areas and the lack of unoccupied farmland, the amount of new farms that can open in the ecozone is severely limited, unlike in The Taiga Plains. The data supports this idea because the amount of farms in The Prairie decreased by about 4% between 1971 and 2011. Prairie farmers are struggling with the threat of urban development and the temptation of enticing land sale prices. Plus, there is an abundance of competition in the area, so small, low-grossing farms struggle to match the demand that larger farming companies face.