The sale last year of a provincial community pasture is not a sign of things to come, said agriculture minister Bob Bjornerud.
Last summer, the province sold the 7,000 acre Paddockwood pasture, north of Prince Albert, and put up the Pontrilas pasture, northwest of Tisdale, for sale.
The Pontrilas pasture is the subject of a treaty land entitlement claim.
Bjornerud said there are no plans to sell others. The province owns and operates 52 pastures under the Saskatchewan Pastures Program, which has been operating since 1922.
“They were being underutilized,” he said of the two pastures in the northern farm belt. “They weren’t full and those numbers seemed to be dropping off.”
Typically, pasture patrons become regular, permanent users but that wasn’t the case in these two, he said.
Wally Hoehn, acting director of lands branch, said the few patrons who were using the two pastures have been accommodated at others nearby.
The claim on the Pontrilas pasture is in limbo until January 2013. Until that time patrons are able to use it.
