Changing Farmland Tenure and Food Sovereignty on the Canadian Prairies

Katherine Aske, 2022, The Parkland Institute.

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Alberta has over 50 million acres of farmland. What happens on this land? Who owns it? Who can access it? Most of all, why are land relations structured the way they are? And what are the current impacts of these land tenure dynamics and their implications for our future?

The answers to these questions are political, and we urgently need to face them together. This report draws on publicly-funded qualitative research conducted from 2019 to 2020. It seeks to contribute to a vibrant path forward for rural Alberta.

The report draws from interviews with 52 participants — primarily grain and oilseed farmers, but also others such as Agricultural Fieldmen, scholars, and land brokers. It begins by recounting the significant restructuring of the Canadian agricultural sector that has taken place since the neoliberal turn in the 1980s, followed by an analysis of the core research findings showing how and why grain and oilseed farmland tenure is changing, and concludes by making a case for how we ought to make sense of these changes.

Naomi Beingessner, 2019, in Frontline Farmers: How the National Farmers Union Resists Agribusiness and Creates Our New Food Future, edited by Annette Aurélie Desmarais

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This peer-reviewed book chapter contains interviews with eleven NFU members from Prince Edward Island telling stories of ongoing struggles related to land ownership on the Island. It provides a brief history of landholding in PEI, from absentee landlords controlling the island in 1767 to current corporate challenges to the Lands Protection Act. The Act sets amount limits on land ownership and controls non- resident land ownership to help ensure farmland for Islanders. The NFU members talk about current issues with the Lands Protection Act: the spirit of the Act is not being adhered to as large farmers and corporations find loopholes to buy up land which creates difficulties for smaller and new farmers needing land. They tell stories of past resistance such as the 1971 Tractor Demonstration that shut down transportation to the Island, and project possible futures of farmland in PEI. The interviewees poignantly convey the meanings of land as more than just a commodity and the importance of the NFU as a loud voice for protection of the land.

Darrin Qualman, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, André Magnan & Mengistu Wendimu, 2020, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

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On the Canadian prairies, small and medium-sized family farms are often portrayed as the primary food production units. Yet, the reality of farming in Western Canada is quite different. In fact, a small and declining number of farms are operating the lion’s share of Prairie farmland and capturing the lion’s share of farm revenue and net income.

Concentration Matters: Farmland Inequality on the Prairies by Darrin Qualman, Annette Aurélie Desmarais, André Magnan and Mengistu Wendimu demonstrates that the ownership and control of Canada’s food-producing land is becoming more and more concentrated, with profound impacts for young farmers, food system security, climate change and democracy.

The authors analyse the extent of farmland concentration in Canada’s three Prairie provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba), where over 70 per cent of the country’s agricultural land is situated. They find that 38 per cent of Saskatchewan’s farmland is operated and controlled by just 8 per cent of farms. In Alberta, 6 per cent of farms operate 40 per cent of that province’s farmland, while Manitoba sees 4 percent of farms operate and control 24 per cent of the land. Such concentration makes it much harder for young and new farmers to enter agriculture, with the number of young farmers in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba declining by more than 70 per cent within just one generation.

The persistent decline in the number of farmers, farm size expansion, growing farm income inequality, and increased land concentration have other effects as well. Rural economies, communities, businesses, and services are also affected as there are fewer farm families to patronize local shops and services, while farmers lose their capacity to democratically influence governments and legislation as their voting numbers fall. Meanwhile, non-farmers lose their connections to farms and rural culture as fewer and fewer urban residents count farmers among their family members or friends. A series of policy measures are urgently needed to counter the market forces that will otherwise drive us toward even more concentrated farmland ownership and drive half of Canadian farm families off the land in the next one to two generations.

Naomi Beingessner, 2022, doctoral dissertation, University of Manitoba.

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Amid trends of privatization, financialization, and decreasing access to agricultural land, there is a call for more sustainable and equitable land tenure and access. In response, I present four cases as interventions into the story of private property in the Canadian prairies, asking how stakeholders negotiate the multiple and sometimes competing functions of agricultural land in economic development, food production, conserving and enhancing ecological resources, recreation, and reconciliation. In qualitative studies of a) persuasive stories used by respondents to government consultations on land ownership to foster change b) public responses to changes in trespassing legislation, c) conflict and collaboration among stakeholders managing land for agri-environmental goals in alternative grazing land tenure models and d) a network of settler landholders sharing land with Indigenous land users, I employ critical realism to analyse interviews and secondary data. I consider questions of rights and responsibilities to land, mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion from land, the public good, and the discourse and actions that challenge or legitimize land access/tenure practices and related policies/legislation. Each case also explores the possibility of different futures for land regimes based on changing social relations as people work to challenge or further entrench private property rights. Alternatives to private land ownership cultivate diverse relationships in relation to, and with, land and people.

Melissa Davidson, 2021, University of Manitoba

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Across the province of Saskatchewan, where more than 40% of Canada’s agricultural land is located, patterns of farmland tenure are shifting and farmers claim that much is at stake. Based on both qualitative and quantitative research, this thesis analyzes two processes taking place in Saskatchewan: the ongoing consolidation of farmland and increasing financially-motivated farmland ownership. In addition to discussing the ways in which these shifts are transforming agriculture, the environment, and rural societies, this work provides insights into the locally-specific nature of these trends, the frameworks in which they are understood, and the grounds on which they are being accepted and facilitated by farmers. Situated within discussions of land and its meanings, I argue that as farmland is further consolidated and owned in greater proportions by absentee landowners and non-farmers, land is increasingly being oriented towards its productive and financial value, thereby displacing many of its social, cultural, and ecological meanings—what is commonly referred to as deterritorialization. Although treating land this way has allowed some Saskatchewan farmers to continue farming, farmland consolidation and increasing investor land ownership are pursued at the expense of the livelihoods of many farmers, the erosion of rural communities, and ecological degradation.

Hannah Bihun, 2021, University of Manitoba

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On the Canadian prairies, farmland is more than just an investment or a resource; access and control over farmland is deeply embedded in the history, culture, and identity of Canadian farmers. Land grabbing, the large-scale purchase of farmland by domestic or foreign investors, is a phenomenon on the rise worldwide and is best understood within the framework of financialization. Despite a lack of quantitative research on the topic, some of the effects of financialization in the agri-food sector are visible in Manitoba, including rising farmland prices and increasing farmland concentration, resulting in fewer and larger farms. My research investigates the dynamics of farmland ownership in four rural municipalities with high valued farmland in Manitoba. Although reliable information about farmland investment in Manitoba is limited, 39 semi-structured interviews with farmers, rural municipal officials and staff, and others involved in the agriculture industry, provide a baseline understanding of the current dimensions of farmland sales, farmer-landlord relationships, and the social and environmental implications of increasing farmland concentration. I draw on participants’ perceptions of investors to better understand how these kinds of purchases might impact rural landscapes. Furthermore, I find that farmers themselves have adopted financial logics as they make land purchases that are less rooted in the productive value of the land and increasingly motivated by the speculative value of the land. Thus, my research reveals the ways that the ‘good farmer’ framework is at work in Manitoba and is pushing farmers to make “non-economically rational” (as cited in Burton et al., 2020, p.2) decisions that are ultimately contributing to the deterioration of rural communities and environments. The thesis concludes by discussing two pathways for the future of agriculture in Manitoba: the first is that these trends will deepen and access to land and control over food production will be further extracted from the hands of local people. The second is a more hopeful possibility that farmers, civil society, and government might co-construct a different future in agriculture by redefining what it means to be a ‘good farmer’ and prioritizing community, collaboration, and profitable/viable farm businesses.

Katherine Diana Aske, 2020, University of Manitoba

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Across the Prairie Provinces, concern is growing as investor actors of various stripes continue to show interest in purchasing farmland, in addition to the broader trends of increased rates of tenant farming, and farmland concentration. These tenure changes are not being closely monitored at the provincial level. Due to the inaccessibility of the land titles data in Alberta, it is not yet possible to do a quantitative analysis of tenure changes, as has been done in Saskatchewan. This study instead hones in at the community level in three regions of Alberta through 40 interviews, primarily with grain and oilseed farmers. The interviews reveal that financial players -- investor actors, as well as banks -- are pushing up the price of farmland, creating a widening gap between its market value and productive value. I argue that irrespective of the landlord, tenant farming arrangements will not allow the kinds of transformations to alternatives that are necessary in the face of the farm income crisis as well as the climate crisis. I also analyze the unravelling of rural community structures under neoliberalism, and consider how these changes impede the collective action needed to push for transformation.

Laura E. Funk, 2020, University of Manitoba

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In Canada, land registries fall within provincial governments’ jurisdiction and therefore, approaches to management vary across the country. A trend of privatization has occurred in some provinces, marking changes in how governments approach the management of their land registries. Research on land administration and management of public services has not included thorough examination of the levels of accessibility of land registry data to the public. While there are some members of the general public who can efficiently access data, others face challenges when seeking to acquire data for various public interest purposes. This multiple case study analysis centres on the Canadian prairies where provincial governments’ decisions regarding land registries are developing within a context of modernizing public services. Through semi-structured interviews with 21 individuals and document analysis of various resources including Hansard records, I seek to explore the political economy of land registry management and the inclusion of the private sector in modernization and service delivery. I highlight the streamlining of services according to lawyer-centric systems and products, which have developed based on an orientation towards creating, improving and marketing services towards professionals in legal, real estate and financial sectors. I connect this trend to the evolving commercialization and marketization of land registries occurring in cases where private sector service providers (in partnership with provincial governments) are leveraging data to generate capital for shareholders and owners. In doing so, the “public” nature of land registry data is challenged and compromised. Based on these developments, I usefully discuss the implications of lawyer-centric systems on the accessibility of data to members of the public who do not fit within the mainstream category of clientele, but maintain a right and hold valid interests in accessing public land registry data.