Many Saskatchewan residents may not even be aware that a Progressive Conservative party still exists in their province, much less know that the current leader is someone named Rose Buscholl. However, Buscholl and her party have tapped into a key concern — farmland ownership.
The PCs and Buscholl have little hope of any electoral success. While all sorts of fringe parties are vying for attention, the provincial election this fall is a contest between the governing Saskatchewan Party and the NDP. The Sask Party’s lock on government is much more tenuous this time around, and the NDP is expected to make significant gains, particularly in urban ridings.
Both of the two major parties would do well to recognize the issue Buscholl and her party have identified. Land ownership has become a top-of-mind issue in rural Saskatchewan, an issue that also resonates in the cities.
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The PCs in their brief news release dated May 24 aren’t suggesting anything earth shattering. They’re mainly calling for more scrutiny, including the modernization of the Saskatchewan Farmland Security Board, which is supposed to make sure current farmland ownership laws are followed.
“More and more Saskatchewan land is now under ownership of out-of-province and foreign entities,” Buscholl says in the news release.
Other Canadians can own Saskatchewan farmland. That change was made many years ago. However, foreign entities are supposed to be very limited in the amount of land they can buy.
Stories and rumours abound over foreign money being behind some of the large farmland buyers of recent years, but no proof is ever provided. More scrutiny and more transparency would be good, if only to dispel the rumours. This would require more money for the Saskatchewan Farmland Security Board, but it could be money well spent.
Beyond more scrutiny and transparency, we should be having a discussion about any possible changes in farmland ownership laws. People complain but seldom advance policy alternatives. Do we really want to go back to the days when only Saskatchewan residents could buy farmland?
Observers decry the double-digit annual increases in the value of farmland and complain about farms getting ever larger and how that is decimating rural communities. But are we really willing to place a limit on the size of farms, and how would that limit be implemented?
The nitty gritty of farmland ownership policy could be divisive, but more transparency and scrutiny would be widely supported. Both the Sask Party and NDP would do well to take this cue from the PCs.
While it’s natural to imagine nefarious forces, the meteoric rise in farmland prices and the increase of mega farms is more likely just economic reality at work.
Land prices have seldom made sense based on productive value, but when land price appreciation is factored in, we should have all been taking bigger risks and buying more land in the past 20 years or more. It’s sour grapes for those of us who didn’t max out our purchases.
Grain farming has been profitable, and crop insurance has provided a great base of support in bad years. Many, if not most farms are looking to expand. There’s no shortage of young people wanting to farm. Meanwhile, technology allows us to farm more acres with fewer people.
As for big farms killing small communities, maybe we should also examine vacationing habits. Even many medium-sized farmers escape to warmer destinations for weeks or even months during the winter. What does that do to local infrastructure?
Kevin Hursh is an agricultural journalist, consultant and farmer. He can be reached by e-mail at kevin@hursh.ca.
