Reading Time: 10 minutes Land is up. Inputs are up. Commodities are volatile. And that’s just a start. Climate change is getting real. Interest rates are too. And the international scene is chaos. Does it all add up to good news for your farm in 2024? Bad news? And what can you do to keep your farm on the […] Read more
Summer Series: Opportunities ahead
[Change Management] What’s in store for Canada’s farms in 2024? The news is good, mostly
Renting land better than buying for cash flow: FCC
Each farm needs to make the decision themselves, but a bit of analysis can help when choosing
Reading Time: 3 minutes Rising farmland values and higher interest rates have swung the affordability pendulum in favour of renting, not buying, farmland.
The other option to renting farmland
[The Rent Shakeup: Investors] The decade’s big news in farmland renting is why not to do it, as these investors won’t hesitate to tell you
Reading Time: 9 minutes No matter where they farm and no matter what they grow or produce, farmers lose sleep over the same questions, because no matter who they are, there aren’t any simple answers. How do you expand? How can you pick the right new technologies and invest in them? And, perhaps the most anxiety producing of them […] Read more
Share of rented land increasing
Reading Time: 2 minutes Between the 1975 Census of Agriculture and the most recent, 2021, Census, the share of rented farmland has increased from 30 to 39 percent across Canada. This percentage comes from Census numbers, as the share of “area rented or leased” compared to the total of the “area rented or leased” plus the “area owned.” A […] Read more
Who owns the land?
Farms are consolidating, and non-farmers are getting aggressive
Reading Time: 5 minutes It isn’t always easy to get a clear picture of how the pattern of farmland ownership is changing across Canada, particularly in the Prairie provinces. In Alberta, land titles data is expensive to purchase and in Manitoba, the provincial government has to give permission for access, even for research purposes, and that can take several […] Read more
Choosing Canada
For these new immigrants, there’s no going back. Their future is here
Reading Time: 4 minutes It isn’t just the government red tape and the inevitable mountain of paperwork that comes with it that has driven some European farmers to Canada. It’s also the public’s negative perception of farmers and how it is fueling a lot of the regulations, especially around manure management, fertilizer use and animal welfare. “There is no […] Read more
The immigrant farm
Is another wave of foreign farmers headed for Canada?
Reading Time: 5 minutes [UPDATED: Nov. 21, 2023] Even into the early 2000s, Canadian real estate agents were doing impressive business flying cash-rich and expansion-minded European farmers west across the Atlantic to buy turnkey farms here at prices far cheaper than they could ever find at home. That was then. Today, the flow has slowed to a trickle, not […] Read more
U.S. Lawmakers seek to limit corporate, foreign ownership of farmland
Farm groups, lawmakers are concerned that foreign, investor ownership is driving up prices and threatening national security
Reading Time: 2 minutes Washington | Reuters – U.S. lawmakers from both parties are pushing legislation that would limit who can own American farmland, with a latest effort from Democratic Senator Cory Booker aimed at curbing corporate ownership. Farm groups and lawmakers are concerned that land buys by investors and foreign countries are driving up farmland prices and threatening […] Read more
Buy or rent? Land rent-to-price ratio can help farmers decide
FCC sees current ratios on farmland as (roughly) stable
Reading Time: 4 minutes Higher interest rates don’t seem to be affecting the ratio between land values and land rental costs — at least, not yet. Farm Credit Canada’s latest analysis of farmland rental prices says they’re roughly maintaining their traditional linkage, says J.P Gervais, the organization’s chief economist. “We were curious to see whether that would bring up […] Read more
Farmland values exceed expectations
Ontario leads the country with 19.4 per cent increase
Reading Time: 3 minutes Average farmland prices were up 12.8 per cent in Canada in 2022, the largest increase seen since 2014 when the increase was 14.3 per cent. The increase follows gains of 8.3 per cent in 2021 and 5.4 per cent in 2020. J.P. Gervais, FCC’s chief economist, said the numbers were a little bit of a […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
