Land ownership has been the stabilizing force in western Canadian agriculture. It’s an asset that producers can bank on when margin cycles turn against them and provide income when age and health problems catch up with them.
Land is what allows prairie farms to continue as traditional, family enterprises.
Lenders know that farmers will do whatever is necessary to maintain ownership of the property they post as collateral for loans, which reduces risk to banks’ earnings and less management on behalf of their investors. It also creates a steady stream of revenue for these institutions.
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Farm groups are too amiable with the federal government
Farm groups and commodity groups in Canada often strike a conciliatory tone, rather than aggressively criticizing the government.
Government doesn’t like to discuss the true value of farming to Canadian society because it might be asked to provide stabilizing investments into farms to support the land’s management as a natural resource. Those are European and American models.
Why burden Canadian taxpayers when farmers will do it at their own expense?
The general public, 98 percent non-farmers, have shown an increasing tendency to think of farmland as something that should be protected from exploitive activities, which in some cases includes farming.
Global agencies often describe farmland as shrinking or being depleted. As well, public opinion often makes a connection between nutrition and land in parts of the world where population densities and food imports are high.
Farmland is also associated with wealth. The very wealthy are buying it at an accelerated rate as a multigenerational hedge against undependable equity markets and hunger. As a result, it should be of no surprise that farmland ownership is a political issue.
Competing interests support land prices.
Governments, which are among those interests, use foreign ownership rules to limit that competition in the name of sovereignty and the public good. These rules also keep land affordable for farmers.
However, the rules are under constant pressure.
Free market idealists suggest that restrictions impede investment and growth, which might be the case if Canada’s main competitors in food production practiced free market economics. But they don’t.
Hopefully, looming elections will provide a chance for farmers to reach out to the rest of the country and the next crop of would-be legislators.
michael.raine@producer.com
