Farmland values on the rise in Ontario's east and southwest

Monday, May 9, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

Farmland is a hot commodity as its average value across Canada increased 2.1 per cent during the last six month of 2010, according to Farm Credit Canada.

That trend was very evident in Ontario where farmland values increased an average of 2.4 per cent during the second half of 2010. Combined with gains earlier in the year the average monthly increase in 2010 was 0.6 per cent, the highest across Canada, it says in Farm Credit’s Spring 2011 Farmland Values Report, released Monday. The report covers the period from July 1 to Dec. 31, 2010.

Pockets of southwestern and eastern Ontario is where land values increased, it says in the report. “The remainder of Ontario experienced minimal changes in land values.”

Oxford County-area realtor Alister MacLean, of the Ontario Real Estate Association’s commercial council, agrees with Farm Credit’s assessment.

“It’s a seller’s market,” he says. “There are more buyers than there are sellers. That puts demand on land and that’s why you’re seeing higher prices.”

The report indicates strong demand in southwestern Ontario comes partly from dairy farmers looking to buy land for cash crop growing because they can’t get the quota they need to cover expanding milk production. Large intensive livestock operators are also gobbling up any available land to expand their operations and to satisfy nutrient management program requirements.

MacLean says in many cases land is the cheapest part of a farming operation when compared to items such as quota purchases. “Land is still a good buy.”

Across Canada, the highest average increase was in Prince Edward Island where land values rose 3.2 per cent, while at the other end of the scale values in Newfoundland and Labrador were unchanged compared to the previous reporting period.

In Ontario, farmland values have been rising for the past 18 years since 1993, it says in Farm Credit’s report. MacLean says there doesn’t seem to be a major slowdown in demand. BF