Provincial and federal governments should revamp Canada’s farmland ownership laws to keep land out of the hands of foreigners, non-farmers, corporate farming entities and large investment companies, says the National Farmers Union.NFU president Terry Boehm said Canadian farmland is increasingly slipping out of farmer control and into the hands of large investors or corporate agribusinesses.In addition, unprecedented farm debt levels, rising input costs and the emergence of financing arrangements that require farmers to deliver production to large multi-faceted agribusiness companies have eroded farmer autonomy and placed Canada’s farm families in a troubling position, said Boehm.According to recent figures, farm debt levels in Canada have reached an unprecedented $63 billion, pushing annual debt servicing costs to around $3 billion.According to Boehm, an increase in interest rates would result in an unmanageable “debt bomb” that could push more family farms out of business and clear the way for further corporate control of Canadian agriculture.The NFU outlined its concerns earlier this week in a 29-page report called Losing Our Grip: How Corporate Farmland Buy-Up, Rising Farm Debt and Agribusiness Financing of Inputs Threaten Family Farms and Food Sovereignty.“Internationally, we are seeing increasingly agricultural land being used as an investment commodity … and that triggered an interest in what’s been happening in Canada,” said Boehm.The NFU report examined existing farmland ownership laws across Canada and attempted to determine who is buying land and how much land has been acquired by large agribusinesses, foreign interests or investment companies.Darrin Qualman, director of research for the NFU, said that task proved difficult because provincial governments keep little or no relevant data on the subject.“The first problem is that governments just don’t keep track. We’d like to have a fuller picture of what’s happening with the help of government statistics but really what we have to do is look at it on a company by company basis and figure out what the big players are doing.”The report highlighted 10 examples of large-scale land acquisitions by investment companies or corporate agribusinesses, including companies such as Calgary based Agricapita, Regina-based Assin-iboia Capital Corp. and Toronto-based Bonnefield Financial, all of which have acquired significant farmland holdings in Western Canada.It also listed Nilsson Bros Inc., which owns large tracts of farmland in Western Canada as well as feedlots, packing plants, auction facilities and financing companies.
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