Ontario farmland fetches record price says report

Monday, September 12, 2011

by KAREN BRIGGS

Fuelled by skyrocketing commodity prices, increasing export opportunities, and a scarcity of tillable acreage on the market, prices for Ontario farmland have reached “unprecedented levels", states a report released Tuesday by RE/MAX Ontario-Atlantic Canada.

“This is the first time in memory when we have had more potential buyers (of farmland) than listings,” says Dale Petrie, a Chatham/Kent sales representative with the company. Petrie was the driving force behind the release of this inaugural Farm Edition trends report. “We have been blessed here in Ontario,” he says. “Prices for corn and soybeans have doubled in recent years, and global demand for grain has driven up real estate prices. 

The RE/MAX Market Trends Report – Farm Edition 2011, notes that of the 12 major agricultural communities examined in Ontario, 92 per cent reported a shortage of quality farmland for sale, while 75 per cent reported an increase in price per acre – up to $20,000 an acre in the Holland Marsh/Bradford area, for example.

The report also highlighted the continuation of a trend towards fewer, but larger, farming operations province-wide. On a national scale, the average farm has tripled in size over the last 50 years, as farmers accumulate more acreage, either by purchasing or leasing, and diversify (including hosting solar or wind power projects, or facilitating the extraction of below-ground resources like natural gas).   

Petrie notes that investors form a small part of the buying group in the province, “but I would say 95 per cent of our land purchases are farmers looking to add to their acreage.” BF