Land loopholes questioned
P.E.I. Potato Board chair says Lands Protection Act provisions not being followed
The head of the P.E.I. Potato Board is concerned that agricultural land sales in P.E.I. are increasingly not adhering to the Lands Protection Act. In a presentation before the Standing Committee on Communities, Land and Environment on Thursday morning, Potato Board general manager Greg Donald said he has heard concerns from farmers related to unethical land real estate practices. He also said he has seen an increase in sales of farmland that are not being advertised on the Island. Donald said the number of potato farms in P.E.I. has declined from 460 in 1997 to 186 in 2017. He said his concern about sales of farmland to non-residents is underscored by the declining number of family farms on the Island. Under the Lands Protection Act, non-residents of Prince Edward Island must have permission of cabinet in order to own more than five acres of land. The act also limits individuals to land holdings of 1,000 acres and corporations to 3,000 acres of land. “We believe that there is a better opportunity to manage the Lands Protection Act and its regulations that are currently in place. There’s good rules and regulations that are there. They just need to be adhered to,” Donald said. Donald said he had heard from one farmer, who had been renting land from another land-owner, who found out in the spring that the land had been sold without his knowledge. The sale had not been advertised locally. “They would like to at least have a fair opportunity to acquire that land,” Donald said, speaking before the standing committee. Donald said the Lands Protection Act includes advertisement of land sales as a guideline, not a regulation. He recommended amending the act to make this a requirement. Donald also said some realtors are circumventing residency requirements of the act. “We’ve heard stories of having people buy land that are residents, rent the land to a non-resident until that person meets the residency requirements, which are 12 months now. Then they would sell them the land,” he said. Donald also suggested there be greater transparency in relation to approvals of land sales by cabinet, including the reasoning behind recommendations by the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission. Donald said soil conservation and nutrient management have improved on the Island in recent years, but that practices such as buffer zones and alternative land use eat into areas under cultivation. “Doing things that are good for the soil and the environment, like some of the structures that we showed — the buffer zones, increasing rotation and many other practices — sometimes requires more land for a grower to keep the same level of production,” Donald said. Donald took questions from MLAs following his presentation. Liberal MLA Allen Roach asked whether a provision should be put into land lease legislation allowing right of refusal from individuals renting land. “It would be nice to see that if farmers are leasing land, that also in that contract to lease that land, that there would be a requirement of right of first refusal. I think that would be an excellent way to stop that,” Roach said. “It’s kind of a hard question to ask,” said Potato Board acting chairman Darryl Wallace in response. Wallace said long-term land owners, who rent medium or smaller plots to farmers, are not often the culprits who make large land sales in secret. “Those are not the fellas that are going to sell it underneath you anyway. It’s some of these other people that have the big blocks and the big-ticket items,” Wallace said.