Robert Andjelic, one of the largest landowners in Saskatchewan, is moving to the province.
Andjelic, the founder of Andjelic Land, has based his business out of Calgary since 2011.
That changed about a month ago.
“We have relocated our office to Regina as of March 1, 2020,” Andjelic Land said in a news release. “We are looking forward to being more accessible to you, our tenants and being even more involved in the Regina and Saskatchewan communities.”
Andjelic Land owns about 210,000 acres of farmland in Saskatchewan, spread across 85 municipalities. A large chunk of that land is in the eastern half of the province, stretching from Yorkton to Regina and down to the United States border.
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Andjelic is not only moving his business to Regina. He plans to move from Calgary to the Regina area, sometime in 2020.
That should reduce his time behind the wheel.
From May to October he’s constantly in his truck, visiting farmer-partners across the province.
“I spend about three weeks out of the month on the road in Saskatchewan,” said Andjelic.
In a typical year, he puts about 65,000 kilometres on his truck.
“It now makes sense to be where all the holdings are. Where I spend most of my time.”
Andjelic rents land to about 300 farmers in Saskatchewan. Some of the arrangements are a straight lease, with a rate per acre.
Other deals are more complex, where Andjelic Land gets a share of crop production or covers the cost of crop inputs.
The benefit for producers is they can expand their farm without taking on additional debt.
“One full line of equipment, large equipment, can do 7,000 to 10,000 acres…. So, if a guy has 4,000 acres and he has the full line of equipment that can do 7,000, I fill that void. He comes and rents the other 3,000 (acres) from me. He’s (now) utilizing his equipment fully,” he said in 2018.
Andjelic grew up in Winnipeg and began his career in the masonry business. That evolved into commercial real estate. By the mid 2000s he owned nearly three million sq. feet of commercial space in the city.
Andjelic sold the business in 2007 and moved to Calgary. He planned to use the cash to re-invest in industrial real estate but shifted his attention to agriculture — a sector where Canada has a global advantage.
“What do we have that the rest of the world has to have?” he said. “The answer is definitely agriculture and water.”
Over the last several years, Andjelic and his six employees have focused on land improvements, making their cropland more productive and sustainable.
As well, he has built relationships with agri-food companies that want to buy commodities from a single source.
“We can satisfy virtually anybody’s demand for raw products,” he said. “Between us and the tenants, we have approximately 600,000 acres at our disposal.”
Most of his tenants own two-thirds of their land and rent the remaining one-third from Andjelic. So, his land and their land adds up to 600,000.
Andjelic is especially excited about the opportunity in plant-based proteins.
He has non-disclosure agreements with companies looking to build protein fractionation plants in Saskatchewan.
“As time goes by and they make things more public, then I can talk about it more…. (But) they’re very concerned about competitors finding out their plans,” he said. “It’s mostly yellow peas that we’re talking about. There are other products they can do. They can do chickpeas, lentils, canola and so on. But the bulk of the demand is going to be in yellow peas.”
Andjelic, who is in his 70s, believes strongly in the potential for agriculture and agri-food processing in the province.
He bought land in Saskatchewan and will soon move to the Regina region because he wants to play a role in the province’s future.
“I’ve always been pushing (promoting) Saskatchewan and Saskatchewan interests,” he said.
“Ultimately, we’re going to try attract more (investment) towards Saskatchewan.”
Andjelic Land has hired a new chief operating officer, Eric Urzada, who will work out of its Regina office.
