OPINION Travel with me to a time not long ago when the government in Ontario was of the red variety. The former premier, at one point, went so far as to also serve as agriculture minister, in an effort, one can only imagine, to show her commitment and respect for the portfolio. Kathleen Wynne’s government… Read More
Category: Land prices
Under the guise of solving the housing crisis, Ontario’s premier Doug Ford is moving to develop over 7,000 acres of prime agriculture land in the province’s Greenbelt around the city of Toronto. In exchange, the Ford government says it will set aside over 9,000 acres…somewhere else. MPP for Temiskaming-Cochrane, John Vanthof says the premier’s plan… Read More
Land prices have officially reached a new high in the United States. According to DreamDirt Auctioneers, land in southeastern Nebraska sold on October 27, 2022 for US$27,400 per acre. This record-breaking price had two tracts; 116.07 acres for $27,400/acre, and 163.07 acres for $14,400. If you do the math, that totals to around $5.5 million… Read More
An average increase of 8.1 per cent in the price of farmland in early 2022 in and of itself isn’t necessarily outlandish — but some of the provincial averages leading up to that number are rather mind-blowing. Year-over-year growth in Ontario topped 27 per cent, Manitoba is averaging 13.6 per cent growth, and Saskatchewan land… Read More
When Farm Credit Canada (FCC) released its first-half of 2022 farmland values report earlier this week, reaction was somewhat mixed, ranging from “Well, of course prices are still strong!” to “This kind of growth is absurd given current conditions.” As J.P. Gervais, senior economist with FCC explains, it’s important to look at the 8.1 per… Read More
A mid-year review of farmland values by Farm Credit Canada (FCC) suggests climbing interest rates and poor growing conditions in 2021 have done little to temper demand for Canadian farmland. “Strong farm cash receipts, buoyed by robust commodity prices, have managed to quell some of the profitability challenges from higher interest rates and farm input… Read More
Consolidation is a word that has been floating around the cattle industry recently; however, the term is also gaining legs in the world of agricultural real estate. June Dako and Ray Nordin, real estate agents with ReMax Bridge City Realty, say that they’ve seen a fairly significant decline in available parcels for sale over the… Read More
The 2021 average increase in farmland values isn’t entirely surprising, says J.P. Gervais, chief economist for Farm Credit Canada (FCC), but the magnitude of the increase certainly is. With a weighted average of 8.3 per cent on the year, the significant weather events of the year — the extreme drought for the Prairies and parts of… Read More
According to Farm Credit Canada’s Farmland Values Report, Canadian farmland increased in value by 5.4 per cent in 2020 and 8.3 per cent in 2021, an entire year under pandemic conditions and during an extreme drought for Western Canada. The largest increases were in Ontario (22.2 per cent) and British Columbia (18.1 per cent), followed… Read More
In June of this year, Michael Hoffort will end his 34-year career with Farm Credit Canada (FCC), having spent the last eight years as president and chief executive officer. Hoffort joined FCC in the late ’80s, a decade that was known to be particularly difficult for the farming sector, marked by sky-high interest rates, poor… Read More