Parkland report warns of rising costs, narrowing ownership of Alberta farmland

Alberta's agricultural land is becoming excessively expensive for the financial means of most farmers, according to a new report from the left-leaning Parkland Institute.

Author Katherine Aske argues the trend, which is leading the province's 50 million acres of farmland to be increasingly concentrated among a shrinking number of owners, has a number of wide implications.

“The financialization of farmland in Alberta will not allow for the kind of alternatives that are required in light of the intertwined crises the agrarian landscape is facing, including the climate crisis, the farm income crisis, and a lack of new entrants to the sector,” the report reads.

“Farmland continues to become concentrated in fewer hands, land markets are altered, community sovereignty is lost, relationships to the land change, financial motives reign, and inequality rises.”

The report is titled Finance in the Fields: Investors, Lenders, Farmers and the Future of Farmland in Alberta.

It is based, in part, on interviews of more than 50 people from across Alberta, most of them grain and oilseed farmers.

Aske writes in the report that high land prices, coupled with stagnating net incomes, are putting the future of the industry in question amid “serious questions” about the next generation of farmers.

“Farmers are becoming like speculators in their relationship to land, with their fates tied to farmland prices continuing to rise,” the report reads.

Aske notes that after the financial crash of 2008, farmland became increasingly appealing to investment groups and wealthy individuals looking for cheap land with an expected return on investment.

That interest from major financial players priced out many farmers, who now rent the land and work it as tenants.

This change is not without significant effects, as tenant farmers generally have a more short-term focus in their agriculture, financial and environmental outlook, the report argues.

“Tenant farming ... leaves farmers in precarious economic positions, disconnects them from the long-term health of the land, limits their autonomy, and inhibits them from transitioning to regenerative practice.

“It is a model that contributes heavily to climate change while simultaneously being vulnerable to its impacts.”

Aske writes that governments could improve the situation by regulating bank-loan policies and limiting who can own farmland.

“We must envision and fight toward a future of regenerative livelihoods for those who live in rural communities,” the report reads.

“We cannot let the complexity of the land question deter us from action.”