High costs putting farming out of reach for young people, affecting all Canadians
Global News
The rising cost of land is making it hard for young farmers to enter the industry, and those barriers come when a growing number of older farmers are planning to retire.
When Myriam Landry started raising goats for their meat in 2018, she started small — because she had to.
She opened Chevrerie aux Volets Verts, in St-Esprit, Que., with two goats; she couldn’t afford a large herd and chose animals small enough that she could handle on her own while pregnant with her third child.
“I should have started bigger, but then I would have needed more money, which I didn’t have,” Landry, 33, said in a recent interview from her farm 50 kilometres north of Montreal.
“It’s really hard for young people to start. I don’t even have land, I don’t have tractors, even my goats (I paid for) on loans.”
The rising cost of land is making it harder than ever for young farmers to enter the business. And those barriers come at a time when a growing number of older farmers are planning to leave the industry. Organizations promoting farm succession worry that if young people are unable to enter the industry, only the largest companies will endure, reducing the diversity of crops and livestock and widening the gap between Canadians and their sources of food.
“The main challenge right now is really the cost of agricultural land,” said Benoit Cure, co-ordinator of ARTERRE, a program that pairs aspiring farmers with landowners and farmers planning to retire.
READ MORE: Canada’s farms face a wave of retirements, worker shortages. Will food prices rise?
Cure said multiple factors are contributing to rising prices, including real estate speculation — especially near Montreal suburbs — and strong competition for the best soil in a province where only around two per cent of the land is suitable for farming.
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