Canada is hemorrhaging farmers. Recent reporting shows that 40 per cent of Canadian farm operators plan to retire over the next decade. The majority don’t have a succession plan.
The number one barrier facing new farmers is access to farmland. By 2033, a shortfall of 24,000 general farm, nursery and greenhouse workers is expected to emerge.
Young farmers and Indigenous land stewards cannot grow, harvest and produce food without secure land access. BIPOC farmers (Black, Indigenous and people of colour) are particularly disadvantaged by generations of discriminatory and colonial policies that continue to dispossess them of land.
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Massive investment firms are pushing the cost of land out of reach. The cost of farmland is skewed by the interests of investment firms who are purchasing land far above market rate.
In Saskatchewan alone, large investors and absentee landlords have purchased a million acres of farmland in the last 20 years – an area almost 18 times the size of Saskatoon. These purchases have driven up the cost of farmland by an average of 16 per cent annually. Average values for cultivated farmland in Ontario increased by 19.4 per cent in 2022.
Under these conditions, farmers cannot afford to farm. The National Farmers Union is calling on the federal government to stop allowing predatory investment firms to gamble with Canada’s food system.
“We know what happens when land speculators are allowed to run rampant,” said Rav Singh, youth advisor for NFU Ontario. “It was land speculators who bought up Greenbelt farmland with the help of the Ford government, planning to pave it over and build high-end townhouses. Investment companies should not have the power to gamble with the future of farming.”
“Our governments must pull the emergency brake and keep farmland in farmers’ hands,” added Jessie MacInnis, NFU youth president. “We need land legislation that favours the next generation of farmers, not investment firms. The National Farmers Union demands that governments enact a total ban on investor ownership of farmland.”
– The National Farmers Union is a general farm organization.
