Carol Baldwin
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Wakaw Recorder
Agriculture Minister Daryl Harrison announced on October 14th the passing of regulatory amendments to help ensure Saskatchewan farmland is Canadian-owned and to strengthen and clarify the Farm Land Security Board’s powers to enforce regulatory compliance.
Amendments to The Saskatchewan Farm Security Regulations, which support The Saskatchewan Farm Security Act, remove the exemption for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) to own Saskatchewan farmland and provide further clarification on the Board’s abilities to issue monetary administrative penalties for specific contraventions of the Act and regulations.
According to the provincial auditor, Tara Clemett’s 2024 report, there have been five occasions since 2020 where four “foreign individuals” were ordered to sell farmland and two orders for a corporation to reduce its land holdings. Non-Canadian entities are allowed less than a combined 10 acres of farmland, according to The Saskatchewan Farm Security Act, but exemptions can be granted, and 140 exemptions were awarded in the previous five years, with many of the larger exemptions given to European companies.
In 2015, after extensive consultations were held, the Government of Saskatchewan amended The Saskatchewan Farm Security Act to prevent pension plans from owning Saskatchewan farmland. However, at the time, CPPIB was given an exemption allowing it to continue to hold only the land it owned at that time, approximately 167,000 acres. Since then, CPPIB has sold off these holdings and now owns no farmland in the province. The new regulatory amendment removes the exemption and prevents CPPIB from acquiring any farmland in Saskatchewan in the future, consistent with other pension plans.
“These amendments ensure the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board will no longer be able to own farmland and clarify the situations where monetary penalties can be applied to farmland owners in contravention of the Act,” Harrison said.
Also in 2015, the government amended the Act to provide the Board with additional tools to enforce compliance with farmland ownership rules, including the ability to levy administrative penalties of up to $10,000 for each contravention of the Act. The new amendments further clarify the specific situations where the Board may levy a penalty. Some examples include:
A non-Canadian resident or corporation that acquires more than 10 acres of farmland in the province;
A Canadian-owned corporation that becomes non-Canadian-owned and does not divest itself of holdings over the 10-acre threshold;
A person who acquires farmland on behalf of a non-Canadian resident or a non-Canadian-owned corporation where that purchase would violate the Act; and
A person who has been granted an Exemption to the Act and fails to comply with a term or condition of the exemption order.
On October 6, 2025, the Ministry of Agriculture announced the formation of a Farm Land Ownership Advisory Committee. This committee will consult with industry stakeholders and provide recommendations to strengthen the province’s farmland ownership framework. Engagement with stakeholders is scheduled for October and November, comprising interviews, focus groups, association meetings and written communication. Public consultation will open in 2026.
The provincial government says the committee was selected for their professional expertise and knowledge of the province’s farmland ownership framework, which comprises the Saskatchewan Farm Security Act and the Saskatchewan Farm Security Regulations. The new advisory committee does not replace the Farm Land Security Board, which operates independently of government and will continue to monitor and enforce land ownership legislation. The committee will consist of three members: Ken McDonald (Chairperson), Deron Kuski (Committee Member), and Curt Chickoski (Committee Member), who are expected to submit their report by the end of the year.
“Farmland ownership is an important issue to the people of this province,” McDonald said in a news release, “and it is our task to review current regulations and to make sure that managing this valuable asset remains a priority.”
While prices paid for farmland have continued their long-term upward trajectory, a report by Trent Klarenbach, of Klarenbach Research, published in June, suggested that, based on technical analysis, prairie land prices could drop for the first time in decades. According to Farm Credit Canada, Saskatchewan farmland values have increased by 13.1 percent in the last year, the largest annual increase of any province across the country, and another six percent in the first six months of 2025. Farmland values exclude the worth of production from crops and livestock.
Even as Saskatchewan sought to tighten regulations that restricted farmland ownership, little to nothing seems to have been done to slow down the pace of investor acquisitions by wealthy individuals and their influence, and the financialization of agriculture.
Robert Andjelic now owns roughly 250,000 acres of prime Canadian farmland, mostly in Saskatchewan. After leaving the commercial real estate sector in 2007, Andjelic turned to farmland. After divesting his portfolio of commercial real estate, he says he asked himself, What does Canada have that the rest of the world needs and China or other countries can duplicate easily? And the answer to that was farmland and agriculture, and water.
Andjelic dabbled in hobby farming but admitted he never tried to make a living from farming. For him, owning farmland is an investment and just a different form of real estate. “Saskatchewan had some of the cheapest farmland in the world on an equal production basis,” he said in an interview on The Current in late 2024. “Saskatchewan at that time was about less than half the price of Manitoba and about one third of Alberta farmland.”
While many believe that investors such as Andjelic have little real impact on agricultural practices, his answer to how to counter the impact of climate change should give them pause. His answer to that impact on production is, “to move up higher, up north, and we are ready in front of it. We’re trying to buy land further north.” Move north, break grazing land and ultimately clear forests to “turn it into cropland.” (The Current in Saskatoon, the ‘Paris of the Prairies’ – Part 3, shared by Farmer Mandy, at https://www.meadowcreekfarms.ca/post/barons-are-exploiting-farm-land)
Julie Maxwell, president of the Youth Caucus of the National Farmers Union, summed it up this way: “whoever controls the land, controls the food system, controls the economy, controls the country.”
