By Annette Desmarais
First published in The Conversation February 28, 2023

Real estate is a hot topic in Canada. Most Canadians are acutely aware of how home prices and rents have skyrocketed in the last 15 years or so. In large cities, investor ownership of condos and houses has attracted the attention of policymakers and the public at large, prompting the federal government to crack down on foreign buyers.
While many are familiar with these urban real estate trends, few are aware of the restructuring of farmland ownership occurring in rural areas. Since 2014, we’ve been studying changing land tenure patterns in the Prairies, where 70 per cent of Canada’s agricultural land is situated.
Our research reveals three major trends — ongoing farm consolidation, increasing land concentration and expanding investor ownership of farmland — leading to growing land inequality. Like the transformation of urban real estate, who benefits from these changes is highly contested.
Investor interest in farmland
Investor purchases of farmland worldwide increased significantly as part of the global landgrab spurred by the food price spikes of 2007 and 2008. High food prices, a growing global demand for food and environmental pressures convinced many global investors that farmland was a safe bet in an increasingly volatile world.
As hedge funds, pension funds and wealthy individuals poured billions of dollars into farmland, researchers like us began to write about the financialization of agriculture — that is, the growing influence of financial players and financial motives over farming and food production.
Our research found that investor ownership of farmland in Saskatchewan was negligible in 2002, but had climbed to nearly one million acres by 2018 — almost 18 times the size of Saskatoon. (A million acres is about 4,050 square kilometres). While Saskatchewan sought to tighten rules on farmland ownership in 2016, this seems to have done little to slow down the pace of investor acquisitions.
Robert Andjelic, an investor from Alberta, is now Canada’s largest landowner with 225,435 acres in 92 Saskatchewan rural municipalities. His company leases farmland to dozens of farmers and undertakes “land improvements,” such as clearing trees, brush and other natural habitat, as well as filling in wetlands in order to farm from corner to corner of every parcel.
Another major investor is Avenue Living, which has a foot in both urban real estate (as the owner of multi-family housing units across North America) and farmland, with a portfolio of some 83,000 acres.

As investors gobble up more land, there is growing unease among farmers. Investors argue they are helping farmers by relieving them of their assets and providing young farmers with access to land through rental agreements. Given that, on average, investors pay more for land compared to other buyers, these deep-pocketed buyers have undoubtedly contributed to the rapid increase of farmland prices.
In our survey of 400 prairie farmers, 76 per cent of farmers under 35 indicated that non-farmer investor activity has had a negative or very negative effect on the local farmland market. 83.2 per cent of older farmers indicated that investor activity has had negative or very negative impact on the local community.
Farmers also expressed unease about the growing economic clout of large farmers (over 10,000 acres) and mega-farms (over 30,000 acres) in the region.
Mega-farms keep accumulating land
Investors are not the only entities with vast landholdings. Some of Saskatchewan’s largest grain farms now own and control tens of thousands of acres. According to our research, Monette Farms owned some 63,000 acres of land in 2018, and farms much more than that with production sites in Montana, Arizona and Saskatchewan.
One Organic Farms reportedly operates on a land base of 40,000 acres, with the large majority of the land rented from Andjelic Land Inc., Saskatchewan’s largest investor-owner.
In-depth interviews with over 100 farmers in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba revealed many are deeply concerned about the environmental degradation wrought by big agriculture. Others argued these players out-compete locals for farmland and contribute little to local communities.
Why should city dwellers care?
Land inequality has significant implications for the vibrancy of democracy, the viability of rural communities and the sustainability of agriculture.
Accessing land is currently the biggest barrier for young and new farmers who want to get into farming and land prices continue to soar above what is justified by its productive value. At the same time, farm debt is the highest it’s ever been and the prairies are experiencing an emptying out of the countryside.
We should also be concerned about the financialized logic promoted by investors and mega-farmers, which seeks to extract monetary value from every square inch of farmland.
Given that agriculture is a significant contributor to Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, doubling-down on this hyper-productive, fossil-fuel dependent model will only make it harder for Canada to meet its climate change commitment.
The question is: what kind of agriculture do Canadians want? Growing land inequality undermines the social, economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture.
Progressive agrarian and food movements propose a different future — one based on food sovereignty. This would entail equitable access to land for farmers, sustainable livelihoods and valuing farmland for its social and ecological worth, as well as its productive value.
As the climate crisis intensifies, there has never been a better time for urban and rural Canadians to work together to transform food systems.
Previously published in the Winnipeg Free Press March 30, 2023

By Elizabeth Comack
In “A Tale of Two Sentences” (March 18, 2023 Winnipeg Free Press) Dean Pritchard reports on the stories of two men who were facing similar criminal charges for weapons and drug offences. Both men were being supported by Morberg House, a residential recovery centre, and by all accounts had made great strides in moving forward in their lives. When it came to sentencing, however, the judge handed the Indigenous man a federal prison sentence and gave the non-Indigenous man a conditional sentence that enabled him to remain in the community and continue working with the recovery centre.

By Niall Harney

Previously published in the Brandon Sun and The Winnipeg Free Press, March 23, 2023
The 2023 Manitoba Budget released on March 7 announced close almost $1 billion in revenue cuts. Despite claims about affordability for low and middle-income households, most Manitoba families will not receive anything near the tax savings promoted by the province. Make no mistake, these tax cuts are a giveaway to the rich that will reduce our capacity to fund public services for years.
Resources and ways you can support and act to fight income inequality and for social justice
- Follow and support the MMIWGTS+ Implementation Committee
- Follow and support MIGRANTE
- Follow and support Disability Matters
- Follow and support the work of Make Poverty History Manitoba’s provincial election campaign and next City of Winnipeg four-year budget campaign.
- Follow and support the work of Right to Housing coalition’s provincial election campaign.
- Make the Minimum wage a Living wage
- Paid sick days now – Manitoba Federation of Labour
- Tell Canada to tax excess profits – Canadians for Tax Fairness
- Follow and support Climate Action Team Manitoba
- Follow & support Health Care for All Manitoba
- For local research and analysis please sign up for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives – Manitoba weekly roundup at www.policyalternatives.ca (at bottom of page) or see www.policyfix.ca
- Follow & support working building a more inclusive, fair economy with the Canadian Community Economic Development Network (click Manitoba!)
- Support Sustainable Building Manitoba’s campaign for code adoption – homes and buildings need to be energy efficient to be truly affordable

- Claim: “Budget 2023 removes 47,400 low-income Manitobans from the tax rolls and saves the average family $1,000”
Impact: More of the Basic Personal Amount tax change money will go to Manitoba’s richest 10% than the bottom 50% combined.
The poorest 10% (100,100 Manitobans) get no benefit from this change as they don’t make enough to be on the tax rolls currently.
The second-poorest 10% (990,900 Manitobans) saves only $74 by the increase in the Basic Personal Amount.
The richest 10% save $1,322 on average from the increase in the Basic Personal Amount and the increases to the tax brackets. The increased spending due to these tax cuts could drive up prices and inflation.
Source: More of Budget 2023 tax changes go to Manitoba’s richest 10% than the bottom 50% combined
By Thomas Linner

Manitoba health care is at a crossroads. From emergency care to home care, the entire system is at a breaking point caused by Pallister-era decisions to close emergency rooms and privatize services. Instead of stepping up to fix these problems, Premier Stefanson has carried on the same agenda of cuts and privatization.
By Zach Fleisher
As the old adage goes, budgets are not only a financial blueprint for a government’s plan but also demonstrate their choices and values.

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