Foreign ownership of farmland becoming growing concern for APAS

Foreign land ownership continues to be on the radar of the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS).

Bill Prybylski, President of APAS joined The Evan Bray Show on Friday to discuss the issue.

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Prybylski said the association has sent a letter to the Saskatchewan government about their concerns about foreign ownership of farmland in Saskatchewan and what the group has asked for is simple.

“Our request to the government is to do whatever they need to do to put our members’ concerns at rest,” he said. “To show that they’re doing the due diligence and the Farm Land Security Board (FLSB) is looking into these transactions.”

Prybylski said many producers don’t know how the land is being purchased.

“We don’t know where the money came from,” he said. “In some cases (there are) some pretty significant values and that is the concern — there is that lack of trust that the system is monitoring these land sales.”

Prybylski said the issue touches all areas of Saskatchewan.

There are certainly pockets where the concern is more prevalent than in others,” he said. “The concern comes when we get young guys that want to expand but they’re competing against who knows who is actually buying the land and where that money is coming from.”

Prybylski said he is worried about the future of farming in the province.

“We’re hearing young producers just can’t compete anymore because the land values have increased,” he said. “They believe that they’re competing against foreign money in these transactions, so it’s not perceived to be a level playing field.”

Prybylski said there are loopholes in the current system that allow for foreign farm land purchases.

“It might be a Canadian owned numbered company that is buying the land but the financing is coming from a foreign country or foreign company,” he said.

“There is that back doorway for companies to make investments in Saskatchewan farmland.”

Prybylski said the FLSB has the Saskatchewan Farm Security Act that they can follow.

“The perception is they just don’t have the tools that they need to do an adequate job of looking into these transactions,” he said.

He said the association has suggested some things that the government could look at to put producers’ minds at ease include following the money to find out where it’s really coming from.

—with files from 650 CKOM

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