Farming in Canada is changing. Young people say they can't get a foothold

Julie Maxwell says it's not true that people her age don't want to get into farming, but shifts in agriculture trends have made it financially harder to get a start in the industry.

"I talk to young farmers all the time who want to start farms, who dream of farming … but they just don't see how it's possible or how it's viable," said Maxwell, a small vegetable farmer and president of the youth branch of the National Farmers Union.

"Anyone that wasn't born on a farm or born into some kind of wealth can't get into the game right now," she told The Current's Matt Galloway.

Maxwell runs her farm in Waseca, Sask., a province often referred to as the breadbasket of Canada because it makes up about 40 per cent of the country's farmland. But farming in Saskatchewan is slowly changing, with big investors and large agricultural companies buying up land and then leasing it back to farmers.

Experts warn that that approach is contributing to increased costs and prompting smaller family farms to expand their operations, putting farming out of reach for those just starting out. 

Robert Andjelic, one of the largest investors in Saskatchewan farmland, says that assertion is "totally false." Andjelic started investing in land in the late 2000s and now owns and rents out close to 250,000 acres (about 101,171 hectares), most of which is in Saskatchewan.

"Most of the sales that come to me are much larger, quite often 2,000 up to … 10,000 acres," he said. "No young farmers are going to buy that anyway."

According to the most recent figures available in Statistics Canada's 2021 Census of Agriculture, the average farm size in Saskatchewan is about 714 hectares (or 1,766 acres) — almost double the national average of about 327 hectares (or 809 acres). 

Data analyzed by CBC last year shows that the average farm size in Canada increased by 19 per cent from 2001 to 2021, while the number of individual farms dropped 23 per cent. The data also showed a more-than-fivefold increase in the average price of farmland per hectare over the same period.

In a statement emailed to The Current, the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture said approximately two per cent of the province's farmland is owned by "non-family corporations."

"There is a mistaken public perception that farms are owned by big corporations and a family farm is a thing of the past," the statement said. "In fact, the majority of Saskatchewan farms are family-run businesses and the vast majority of farmland sales remain farm-to-farm."

Maxwell argued that investor activity "has played a huge role in driving up the price of farmland" and making smaller farms less financially viable.

She said a lot of the young people she talks to don't want to run large-scale operations. 

"A lot of these folks just want to feed their communities. They want to have small farms where they grow livestock and vegetables," she said.