Lyle and Jean Straker thought they had the perfect deal.
They agreed to sell their 1,500-acre seed farm near Bangor, Sask., to another farmer, with an arrangement to continue to farm the land under contract.
“It was a done deal,” said Lyle Straker last week. “Everything was set up.”
But when it came to completing the deal, the province’s Farm Land Security Board said no. That’s because the buyer lives about 100 kilometres away in Manitoba.
Saskatchewan’s Farm Security Act, passed in 1974, prohibits anyone who lives outside the province from owning more than 320 acres.
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“It’s very frustrating because farming is in a terrible state right now,” Straker said. “Why can’t we sell to anybody in Canada? I feel like it’s an infringement on my rights as a Canadian citizen.”
The board could have granted an exemption, but didn’t. Straker said he was given no reason for the decision.
In the legislature, Saskatchewan Party agriculture critic Bob Bjornerud said it’s time to change the law. He noted neither Manitoba nor Alberta have the same restrictions.
“It’s a Catch-22, Mr. Speaker,” he said. “Farmers can’t survive in NDP Saskatchewan and yet the government is stopping them from selling their land to the highest bidder.”
Justice minister John Nilson said the Farm Land Security Board is independent and will make an exception to the legislation “if the result doesn’t negatively impact the farm community.”
He said the government chose many years ago to limit out-of-province ownership and doesn’t want absentee landlords.
But the Strakers said they want to farm the land another six years.
“I just think it’s a foolish law,” said Jean Straker. “In our area especially we’re some of the youngest farmers. … There’s going to be an awful lot of land to sell and I don’t know who’s going to buy it because the kids don’t want to farm.”
Their own children, who are in their 20s, have decided not to farm.
“With the poor return that we receive for our investments in land, equipment and labor, our children say ‘why should we work the long hours that Mom and Dad do for next to nothing’,” Lyle Straker wrote in a letter to Nilson earlier this month.
On March 19, Bjornerud introduced a private member’s bill that would amend the legislation to allow Canadian citizens to own more than 320 acres in Saskatchewan.
