When 27-year-old Kaitlyn Kitzan was a kid, farmland near her parents’ farm in southeast Saskatchewan cost about $400 an acre.

Today, in that same region, it’s almost ten times as valuable: $3,500 an acre.

Across Saskatchewan, farmland prices increased by an average of 11 per cent annually from 2005 to 2024.

As the value of farmland rises — alongside the costs of everything from fertilizer to fuel and more — Prairies farmers now face the harsh reality that the better business decision might be just to sell their land, rather than farm it. Alongside the pressures running capital-intensive businesses, climate change and volatile markets, the price of farmland is a major stressor for young farmers like Kitzan, who is trying to take over the family farm.

“We’ve seen [a] steady increase in farmland values to the point where [it has] outstripped the productive value of the land” Bill Prybylski, a veteran farmer from east-central Saskatchewan, says, noting high costs and low prices for crops aren’t helping.  

Financial woes aren’t only affecting small family farms. In April, Monette Farms — one of the largest privately owned farming operations in North America with hundreds of thousands of acres across Canada and the United States  — filed for creditor protection, illustrating the challenging financial situations agricultural operators of all sizes are facing.

“Why is land selling for more than its productive value? The only obvious answer would be speculative ownership,” Prybylski says.

Indeed, hedge funds, pensions and other investors have been interested in farmland in recent years, with farm groups like the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) expressing concerns about foreign investment. Although provinces like Saskatchewan and Manitoba — which together are home to about half of Canada’s farmland — have regulations limiting farmland ownership primarily to Canadians and Canadian-controlled entities, the Saskatchewan government recently launched a review of its policies, saying it would take a closer look at farmland ownership, though it noted there is no evidence of foreign ownership of farmland in the province right now. Meanwhile, Ontario announced in April it will introduce legislation to limit foreign acquisition of farmland.

But that’s little comfort to those currently struggling with the price of farmland. “So much land is owned by people who aren’t farming it [themselves],” Kitzan says. “It is almost impossible to buy farmland from those people who are using it as an investment.”

Canada’s largest private farmland owner is an investor who owns 250,000 acres

There’s been a consistent, long-term shift in Canada toward fewer — and larger — farms. Between 2001 and 2021, the number of farms declined from about 250,000 to 190,000, with the average farm size increasing from 676 acres to 809 acres.

At the same time, investor interest in farmland has risen dramatically in recent decades. Investor ownership of farmland in Saskatchewan was negligible in 2002, but climbed to nearly one million acres by 2018 — almost 18 times the size of Saskatoon. An update to that research suggests the trend may be plateauing, but investors continue to be interested in farmland.

One of them is Robert Andjelic. He left a successful career in commercial real estate in Winnipeg in 2007 and turned his attention to Canadian farmland, an asset he believed was undervalued at the time, even though prices were already trending upward in the previous decade.

A few years later, he began purchasing Saskatchewan farmland at around $345 an acre. Today, land values in Saskatchewan have climbed to roughly $1,500 to $5,000 per acre, depending on the region. With more than 250,000 acres in his portfolio, primarily in Saskatchewan, Andjelic is considered Canada’s largest private farmland owner.

“I used to trade gold, silver, oil, other commodities. Today I have zero in anything else other than farmland. I’m 100 per cent invested in farmland.”

For Andjelic, there’s no doubt that Canadian farmland values will continue to rise. He sees farmland as a resilient, long-term, wealth-preserving investment — particularly during economic downturns.

“The world needs Canada and Canada’s production,” he says, adding food is not an optional consumer good.”

As the global population rises, so too does the demand for food. At the same time, farmland globally is becoming scarcer. Each year, an estimated 22 billion tonnes of fertile soil is lost to erosion, while millions more acres are degraded or converted to urban and industrial uses. 

As a result, there are simply fewer parcels of land available than there are buyers, Justin Shepherd, senior economist at Farm Credit Canada (FCC), says.

“Overall, it’s a really tight supply of land, and there’s been consistent and strong demand from producers looking to grow,” he says, adding there’s limited land for sale.

At the same time, advances in technology and larger equipment mean farmers can manage more acres with the same workforce, incentivizing them to keep expanding and increasing competition for land, which pushes prices higher, he says.

But that creates challenges in terms of access, he says, particularly for younger farmers trying to enter the market.

“We’ve looked at the affordability of farmland and recognize that we’re near historical records for many regions.”

And while Canadian farmland values have experienced growth periods before, all these recent factors have combined to create a longer and more sustained period of land price increases than at any other time in recent history.

A mega farm that wants to feed a billion people a day files for creditor protection

High land prices, and the financial challenges in agriculture, are creating a squeeze for farmers big and small. This was made even clearer in late April when Monette Farms — one of the largest private farming operations active in North America — filed for creditor protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act.

The company reportedly farms approximately 475,000 acres of owned and leased land across Canada and the U.S. The business, a collection of companies that originated from a family farm in Swift Current, Sask., had a goal to “feed a billion people for a day.”

In a note to stakeholders, the company said it was attempting to restructure its debt after rising interest rates and mounting costs strained its finances.

In a court document, Darrel Monette, the head of Monette Farms, said “the real property alone had a valuation exceeding the value of the group’s consolidated liabilities,” suggesting land value alone is more than its total debts. The document states Monette Farms holds about $900 million in secured debt.

Though the company didn’t specifically cite farmland prices as a reason it was facing strain, Monette Farms’ situation drew significant attention from Canadian farmers, reflecting tensions that had been building for years. 

In light of this, many say it’s now critical to confront whether farmland values have outpaced what is financially sustainable to actually farm. Prybylski, who is also the president of APAS, says the current system not only limits expansion for young farmers like Kitzan, it also threatens the very future of the family farm. (Approximately 97 per cent of Canadian farm businesses are family-owned and operated.)

Prybylski welcomes the Saskatchewan government’s move in April to launch a comprehensive review of its farmland ownership rules, examining ownership verification, enforcement and transparency, particularly around corporate ownership.

“Whenever we’ve talked to farmers,” he says, ”the conversation always comes around to stories of foreign ownership.”

Many farmers believe farmland simply shouldn’t be an investment strategy. But Andjelic thinks concerns about a disconnect between profitability and land stewardship miss the mark. 

He argues the two are closely linked — and that long-term investor returns depend on how well the land is managed.

He says he only rents his land to farmers he considers leaders in soil and crop management, requiring them to demonstrate their practices through an application process. He says his team also regularly visits farms, reviewing crop rotations, soil practices and overall land management.

“Soil is both of our bread and butter,” he says. “We’re only as good as the soil and the way we treat that soil. If somebody is mining the land, I don’t care if he pays me two times more than what the market is, he’s not going to get it.”

Eight billion people need to eat

The growth in Saskatchewan farmland values has begun to slow in recent years, but prices still increased by 9.4 per cent in 2025. At the same time, interest rates, farm profitability and regional climate pressures are predicted to play a larger role in affecting farmers’ bottom lines.

Ted Cawkwell, a farmland realtor based in Saskatoon, says some drought-affected areas — particularly in the southwest — have been under pressure as crops have failed or brought in low prices.

“Some of those areas… have had no crop for five, six years,” he says. “Grain prices are low and input costs are high and machinery costs are high. It’s tricky.”

As a result, real estate listings for farmland are increasing in some regions and taking longer to sell, not because values have dropped sharply, but, Cawkwell says, because buyers lack cash.

“The listings that are there just aren’t selling because the farmers don’t have cash,” he says.

But Cawkwell remains optimistic about the long-term outlook, pointing to the big picture.

“We have eight billion people … and people need to eat. You can do without the new house, you can do without the new shoes, you can do without the new car — but you can’t do without food.”

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