By Martin Caron, General President, L’Union des producteurs agricoles (UPA)
According to the International Group of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food), the price of agricultural land has doubled globally over the last 15 years due, in particular, to a spectacular rise in the phenomena of financialization and monopolization everywhere on the planet.
IPES-Food recalls that new players have entered the scene since the global financial and food crises of 2007-2008 and have since used agricultural land as a safe investment. From 2005 to 2017, some US$45 billion was reportedly invested in agricultural land by investment funds, pension funds and insurance companies. In 2018, nearly 45 per cent of all acquisitions on the planet (US$14.8 billion) passed through such institutions.
All these billions of dollars can be explained by an explosion in the number of agricultural investment funds over the years (from 45 in 2005 to 523 in 2018). Last year, approximately 960 funds of this nature managed assets of approximately US$150 billion, including US$16.6 billion in the United States.
To this frantic race towards “safe havens” has been added a more recent phenomenon, namely grabbing for environmental purposes, which has represented around 20 per cent of large-scale land transactions in recent years. Mining projects represented 14 per cent of transactions recorded over the last ten years.
This transformation of land into financial assets is not without consequences. Regions of the globe such as Central Europe have seen the price of land triple since 2008. Between 2002 and 2020, it would have even quadrupled in various heavily agricultural regions of the United States, such as Iowa. And as we know, the value of agricultural land has increased systematically for three decades in Canada. Québec is obviously no exception to this trend (+13.3% in 2023; +11% in 2022; +10% in 2021, according to Farm Credit Canada).
This surge in prices radically changes the portrait of our countryside. The third and final part of the national consultation on the territory and agricultural activities, entirely devoted to agricultural land ownership and access to land, revealed that the areas held by exclusively proprietary agricultural operations are on the decline. in Québec (38% in 2007; 31% in 2023), while those owned by owners “presumably” landlords have almost doubled (8% in 2007; 15% in 2023).
In the absence of sufficient information on these landlords, it is very likely that this category is partly made up of “producer” owners within the meaning of the law, but whose main activity is non-agricultural and strictly speculative. Only the creation of a detailed register of agricultural land ownership, including a mechanism for monitoring transactions, would make it possible to make an informed judgment on this trend. Prohibiting the purchase of agricultural land by investment companies and real estate sector stakeholders, like other Canadian provinces such as Saskatchewan, would also be worth considering.
The data also showed that the areas owned by the 350 largest owners increased by 50 per cent between 2007 and 2023. This growing concentration in the hands of a limited number of owners is of great concern. Remember that around 70% of agricultural land on the planet belongs to only one per cent of owners. This is not the case in Québec, but we must avoid moving towards this reality at all costs.
Access to agricultural land is a fundamental issue for farmers. It is also important for forest producers and maple syrup producers (including on public lands), the economic vitality of our regions and the food security of Quebecers. At the end of the national consultation, concrete measures must be put in place to protect our pantry by avoiding its transfer to speculative interests and a limited number of individuals.
