“Land imaginaries” in Western Canada: (financial) neoliberalism,agrarianism,and the contemporary politics of agricultural land

Abstract

This article examines contemporary political controversies over agricultural land in the prairie region of Canada. We suggest that contemporary land politics reflect elements of continuity and change in a distinctive “land imaginary” connected to the region’s history and recent restructuring. While neoliberalism, and more recently, financialization, have been the main drivers of restructuring in recent decades, certain strands of agrarianism continue to shape social relations in the agricultural sector. We present three case studies, the first of which examines the controversy over institutional investment in farmland, focusing on the Canada Pension Plan’s large-scale purchase of Saskatchewan land. The second case study examines conflicts over the deregulation of government-run community pastures, with implications for the ranching sector, environmental conservation, and the future of native prairie. Our third case study focuses on the proposed sale and land-use conversion of government-owned pasture land in Alberta, dubbed “Potatogate”. We examine the role of farmers, ranchers, governments, NGOs, and private interests in shaping debates over land ownership and use. We argue that these conflicts reveal a tension between (financial) neoliberalism and agrarian arguments and values, with significant differences across agricultural sub-sectors.

Keywords

Land politics land imaginaries agriculture neoliberalism agrarianism multifunctionality

Introduction

After decades of de-agrarianization under neoliberal capitalism (Mamonova and Franquesa, 2019), increasing land concentration and financialization (Fairbairn, 2020; Answeeuw and Baldinelli, 2020; Van der Ploeg et al., 2015) and declining numbers of farmers (Nyéléni Europe and Central Asia, 2021; European Commission, 2015), debates over agricultural land ownership and use are occurring in industrialized countries. The added pressures of climate change, biodiversity loss, need for sustainable livelihoods, and tensions between agricultural communities, conservation movements, and urban dwellers (Nyéléni Europe and Central Asia, 2021) have generated two main responses. First is a right-wing populism that responds to rural feelings of loss by fostering nationalism while maintaining neoliberal capitalist structures (Mamonova and Franquesa, 2019). Another is a progressive agrarian populism embracing agroecology and democratic land reform, with the understanding of land as multifunctional (Borras, 2020; Mamonova and Franquesa, 2019). Of course, there are many points in between, shaped by historical, social, and cultural factors in specific contexts.

In Western Canada, similar developments find unique expression in debates regarding land use and access. Despite economic diversification in recent decades, the Prairie Provinces (Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba) remain agricultural powerhouses. In 2021, just over 90 000¹ farm operations produced $46 billion² worth of farm products in the three provinces. Farming remains the lifeblood of many rural communities and is deeply embedded in the history and culture of the region. Rural issues, including agriculture, have always played an important role in provincial politics. Today, rural voters are a core source of electoral strength for conservative governments in the region (Armstrong et al., 2022).

This article examines contemporary political controversies over agricultural land in the prairie region. We use the concept of land imaginaries—“the underlying understandings, views, and visions of what land is, can, and should be” (Sippel and Visser 2021, 272)—to explore how discourses of agrarianism, neoliberalism, and financialization have shaped recent land transformations. Since European settlement, which dispossessed Indigenous peoples in the name of agricultural development, access to and control over land have played a role in the region’s colonial agrarian politics. Conflicts over land have ebbed and flowed over time. During much of the 20^th century, the central political questions in agriculture were market power, farm incomes, marketing, and farm programs (Skogstad, 2008). Since the 1980s, the state has retreated from its role in stabilizing the sector (Wiebe, 2021) ushering in a process of neoliberal restructuring leading to fewer farms and increasingly concentrated land ownership (Qualman et al., 2020). The sector faces challenges including weather and price volatility, rural depopulation, and farm succession. At the same time, urbanization, financialization, and growing environmental awareness have introduced new pressures on agricultural land, which is sought after for conversion to other uses, for its investment value, or for conservation purposes. In this context, there have been increasingly high-profile conflicts over agricultural land, raising questions for the agricultural industry as well as for society: Who should own the land, who should work it, and to what end?

We present three case studies in order to explore the ways in which social actors understand land and address these normative questions. We chose the cases based on the significance of the public controversies and in order to capture a diverse set of land dynamics. In the first case study, we analyze the controversy around institutional investment in farmland, focusing on the Canada Pension Plan’s large-scale purchase of Saskatchewan land in 2014. This case highlights political conflicts over the financialization of farmland, with parallels to similar tensions in other Global North countries (Sippel and Weldon, 2021; Fairbairn, 2020; Klinge, 2021). The second case study examines conflicts over the termination of government-run community pastures, the most significant policy change in the prairie ranching sector in a generation, with implications for rancher livelihoods, environmental conservation, and access to land for recreational and cultural purposes. The case highlights the value of non-commodity goods provided by multifunctional land, especially during ecological crises (Calo et al., 2021). Our third case study focuses on the proposed sale of public pasture land in Alberta, dubbed “Potatogate”, highlighting the pressure to convert multi-functional native prairie grassland to “high-value” crop production. The selection of cases allows us to make comparisons across agricultural sub-sectors, regions, and political jurisdictions. For each case, we reflect on the role of farmers, ranchers, governments, NGOs, and private interests in shaping debates over land ownership and use. Our analysis reveals tensions and contradictions between (financial) neoliberalism and agrarian values across farming subsectors, showing how political conflicts over agricultural land reveal continuity and change in “land imaginaries” in particular contexts.

Historical context

The contemporary politics of agricultural land in the prairie West is shaped by historic and on-going colonialism. Canada acquired the territory that now includes Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba without consultation of Indigenous peoples in 1869 (Conway, 2006). The state’s strategy for settling the region hinged on signing treaties with the Indigenous inhabitants of the newly acquired territory, then providing generous land concessions to Euro-Canadians. The Dominion Lands Act of 1872 granted 160 acres of land to male settlers who met residency requirements and cleared the land for agriculture (Thomas, 2011 [1976]). With the surveying, parcelling, distribution, and titling of prairie land, Euro-Canadian society made the institution of private property the dominant paradigm for land relations.

Patterns of settlement for crop farming and ranching differed substantially in the early years of colonization. Beginning in the 1880s, the federal government granted cattle companies “no-settlement” leases of up to 100 000 acres, establishing massive ranching enterprises (Jameson, 2011 [1976]). Homestead settlement for crop farming proceeded very slowly at first, but accelerated after the completion of the transcontinental railway in 1885 (Conway, 2006). As demand for homesteads surged, crop farming supplanted ranching in parts of the southwest and huge swathes of native prairie were ploughed under. Between 1891 and 1921, the number of farms in the three Prairie Provinces exploded from 31 252 to 255 657.³ Many homesteaders practiced mixed farming, growing grain and grazing small cattle herds (MacLachlan, 2006, 20).

By the mid-1930s, however, it became clear that crop farming was unsustainable in parts of the southern prairies, as drought and rock-bottom wheat prices wiped out thousands of farming households. The crisis of the 1930s prompted government intervention. In 1935, the federal government created the Community Pasture Program (CPP) as part of a suite of reforms under the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration (PFRA). The mission of the CPP was to reclaim and rehabilitate degraded land through government-provided management, balancing ecological and economic goals (AAFC 2007, 1). From the mid-1930s until the 1970s, Canada developed a set of government-backed institutions and programs that supported the farm sector—what Skogstad (2012) refers to as the “state assistance” paradigm—while promoting a trend towards larger and more industrialized farms. Although the number of farms declined, the farm sector was relatively stable and prosperous. During the neoliberal period—from the 1980s to the present—the prairie farming and ranching sectors have been restructured through deregulation, privatization, and globalization (Wiebe, 2021; Knuttila, 2003; Magnan, 2014; Davidson et al., 2016). Beginning in the 1980s, the sector entered a prolonged crisis, prompted by rising interest rates and depressed world prices for farm commodities. Under the strain of rising program costs and other fiscal challenges, governments began dismantling key farm supports, including grain transportation subsidies, marketing boards, income stabilization programs, and publicly funded agricultural research (Skogstad, 2008). Governments pursued a trade expansion agenda that further exposed farmers to historically low world prices for grain and facilitated corporate concentration in farm inputs, grain handling, and meat packing (NFU, 2008). During the worst of the “farm crisis” in the 1980s and 1990s, farm incomes plummeted, foreclosures increased, and the price of land stagnated.

Between 2008 and 2016, strong commodity prices, low interest rates, and rising land prices helped farm operations improve their balance sheets (FCC, 2016). In recent years, however, the sector has faced challenges. Farm debt grew more quickly than farm assets between 2017–2021, with total debt increasing by 30% over this period.⁴ The sector still deals with the perennial challenges of price volatility and severe weather. The average age of prairie farmers is 55,5 and the industry is expecting a major generational turnover, though there are many barriers to entry for aspiring farmers (Qualman et al., 2018). Land prices increased dramatically between 2008 and 2019 (FCC, 2020), benefiting farmers exiting the industry, but placing a strain on younger farmers wishing to enter the industry or expand their operations.

The political and economic landscape of agriculture has become more complex as new actors and interests have gained influence (Skogstad, 2012). Since the mid-2000s, individual and institutional investors have acquired more than 840 000 acres of Saskatchewan farmland (Desmarais et al., 2017). The “financialization” of prairie agriculture (Sommerville and Magnan, 2015) is part of a broader global trend that has seen investors pour capital into farmland in recent years (Bjørkhaug et al., 2018; Fairbairn, 2020; Ouma, 2020). In the prairie grain sector, the principal investors have been pension plans (discussed below), private trusts, and wealthy individuals (Magnan, 2015; Desmarais et al., 2015, 2017). The entry of investors onto the scene has prompted concerns among local actors (Desmarais et al., 2015; Magnan et al., 2022) as well as public debates over the implications of farmland financialization (Magnan, 2018). These debates have been framed around the motives and origins of the investors, the terms under which investors and farmers compete for land, and the way in which financialization could change relationships between farmers and finance (Magnan, 2018).

With rising environmental and consumer awareness, the sector has had to become more sensitive to public perceptions of agricultural activities. Skogstad (2012) identifies a third, emerging policy paradigm in the idea of “multifunctionality”, which “puts value on the non-commodity social, environmental, and rural development outputs of agriculture” (23). Some elements of this policy paradigm (e.g., payments to farmers for environmental practices) have been incorporated into recent federal agricultural policy frameworks, but these initiatives remain piecemeal. Provincial Ministries of Agriculture now devote considerable resources to protecting the sector’s “social license” to farm, that is, maintaining consumer trust in the food system through public relations. Conservation organizations, including Nature Conservancy of Canada and Ducks Unlimited Canada, are important players in the prairie agricultural land market, and farmers and ranchers increasingly have to consider multiple stakeholders in their land management and business decisions. The context we have sketched here informs the contemporary land question on the Canadian prairies. Next, we provide some conceptual moorings for our case study analysis.

Conceptual framework

Political conflicts over agricultural land reflect the various ways in which land is understood: what it is, how it is valued socially, economically, and ecologically, and what it should do now and in the future (Sippel and Visser, 2021). In other words, conflicts over agricultural land help to uncover the “land imaginaries” operating in a given time and place, both as implicit understandings that shape people’s interactions with land as well as the explicit normative claims made by social actors (Ibid.). Sippel and Visser (2021) stress the need to understand “land imaginaries” in their social and historical context, to investigate “the situatedness and multiplicity of actors who engage with land, along with their various positions of power, interests, and constraints” (Ibid.: 273). In order to provide insight into our case studies, we sketch the dominant discourses shaping contemporary land imaginaries in the prairie region.

Agrarianism and (financial) neoliberalism are two key ideologies shaping the 21st century agricultural sector in Western Canada. Neoliberal ideology has been the primary driver of the dominant “market liberal” (Skogstad, 2012) agricultural policy paradigm of the last 40 years. Provincial and federal governments have made major policy changes by appealing to “free markets” and “free trade” (Wiebe, 2021). The Conservative federal government, for instance, justified the dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board as a means of protecting farmers’ property rights and ending statist intrusion into grain marketing (Magnan, 2014). At the provincial level, proponents of the “market liberal” paradigm view political demands that impede markets as illegitimate and frame agriculture as a business like any other, using metrics such as economic growth, competitiveness, and export volumes as the definition of success (Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture, 2022). Neoliberalism has arguably also influenced identities and political preferences, as farmers embrace labels such as “producer” (Epp, 2008: 86-7), increasingly treat farming as a business rather than a vocation, and overwhelmingly support right-wing political parties.

Financial actors, logics, and processes have become increasingly central to the capitalist global economy (Epstein, 2005; Krippner, 2005). Lawrence and Smith (2018) have argued that financialization and neoliberalism are distinct, but closely associated and mutually influencing social realities. Financial logics are those that privilege shareholder value, rent seeking, and asset-making in economic processes. These logics have become embedded into neoliberal discourses on the efficiency of (financial) markets, the rationality of (financial) actors, and the privileging of (financial) capital flows. In the agri-food system, studies of financialization examine the role of finance capital in restructuring various sub-sectors in different geographical contexts (Burch and Lawrence, 2009; Bjørkaug et al., 2018; Clapp and Isakson, 2018). Sippel (2018) argues that “financial neoliberalism” is a key frame for understanding contemporary land politics in Australia given the state’s explicit embrace of a financialized version of neoliberalism. While some of the same trends are apparent in Canada, we suggest the embrace of financial logics has been more tentative. On the one hand, financial actors including specialized farmland investment firms and pension plans have promoted the financialization of farmland through their large-scale land acquisitions (Desmarais et al., 2017; Magnan, 2018), sometimes with debt financing supplied by the semi-public Farm Credit Corporation (Holtslander, 2015: 11). There is also evidence of farmers deploying financial logics—purchasing and valuing land as much for its financial value as for its productive value—in increasingly tight farmland markets (Aske, 2022). On the other hand, as we discuss below, non-Canadian investors have been barred from purchasing farmland in the Prairie Provinces, and there is little explicit state support for the financialization of agriculture. We thus refer to “(financial) neoliberalism” in the Canadian context.

The ideology of agrarianism, which has deep historical roots (Thompson, 1990), portrays agriculture as a moral and material foundation for society, and therefore an “exceptional” sector. Farmers are attributed an intrinsic virtue due to their economic independence and close relationship with nature, and agriculture is seen as a way of life rather than a job (Carlisle, 2014; Sutherland, 2020). Today, agrarianism is evident in appeals to save the “family farm”, protect agriculture from outside interests (whether foreigners, corporations, or urban elites), and to acknowledge the role of farmers in “feeding the world”. Agrarian values continue to inform moral debates over land in places like Australia, where the concept of “countrymindedness” is central to national myths and collective identity (Sippel, 2018). The attachment to private property is deeply rooted in most forms of agrarianism (Epp, 2008: 82-3). Nevertheless, agrarianism tends to attach certain responsibilities to private ownership, with farmers and ranchers understood as stewards of the land (Freyfogle, 2003). However, as a new strand of critical agrarianism points out, this traditional imaginary can lead to productivism and inequitable race and gender relations (Carlisle, 2014). Agrarianism may be expressed in both “left” and “right” versions and overlaps with populism to the extent that it defines family farmers/ranchers as the “small” actors struggling against “big government” or “big business”. Epp (2019) argues that in Alberta, a recent move away from agrarianism in political speech and policy has resulted in a backlash as rural peoples cultivate a “politics of resentment”. In what follows, we analyze recent conflicts over agricultural land in light of the social and ideological portrait painted above.

Data and methods

For our analysis, we collected publicly available data including media reports, grey literature produced by civil society organizations, and the results of government-run consultations. The first government-run consultation was launched in 2015 in response to controversy around institutional land ownership in Saskatchewan and included 3,200 responses from individuals, organizations, and businesses. We obtained the anonymized set of comments submitted to the government as well as the formal briefs submitted by 21 organizations. The second government-run consultation was conducted in 2017 in response to the Saskatchewan government’s decision to scrap the provincial pasture program. We analyzed over 2600 individual comments submitted by consultation participants. For the “Potatogate” case, we relied on media reports and materials produced by civil society organizations. We used Nvivo, a software for qualitative data analysis, to identify the common themes and issues raised in the consultation and submission documents. We coded the materials thematically to identify key discursive elements across cases. Each author was primarily responsible for coding one case, but co-authors validated the initial coding through further discussion and refinement of themes.

Results

Institutional ownership of farmland in Saskatchewan

In 2003, the government of Saskatchewan liberalized ownership rules to allow out-of-province Canadians to purchase farmland, ending a 30 years policy that had restricted farmland ownership to provincial residents only (Desmarais et al., 2015). In doing so, the government sought to send an “open for business” message. Beginning in the mid-2000s, institutional and out-of-province investors began acquiring substantial tracts of land (Desmarais et al., 2017). By the early 2010s, who should be allowed to own farmland in the Prairie Provinces, particularly in Saskatchewan, had become a controversial subject (Desmarais et al., 2017; Magnan and Sunley, 2017). The debate has centred on Saskatchewan because this is where Canadian institutional entities have focused their farmland purchases.

In 2014, the Canada Pension Plan’s purchase of 115,000 acres of farmland from an investment company, Assiniboia Farmland Ltd., for $CAN 128 million sparked a major controversy (Magnan and Sunley, 2017; Briere, 2015). The leader of the Progressive Conservative party⁶ criticized the deal as an irresponsible giveaway of the province’s strategic resources and raised questions about the Farmland Security Board’s oversight of the purchase. This in turn prompted a public debate about institutional ownership, to which the government responded by launching a review of its farmland ownership rules, including a public consultation process. The actors who expressed their concerns about investor ownership of farmland included farmers’ organizations such as the National Farmers Union (NFU) and the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS), farmers, local agricultural business owners, and scholars. The arguments against investor ownership of farmland in Saskatchewan fall under a number of key themes.

Investors drive up land prices making it harder for young people to start farming

Consultation survey participants expressed a strong desire to ensure farmland remains affordable for Saskatchewan farmers. Many argued that institutional investors such as the Canada Pension Plan, with access to a large amount of capital, would out-compete local farmers, making it difficult for new and young farmers to buy farmland. Magnan and Desmarais (2017) have shown that, on average, investors paid far more for farmland than other buyers in several regions. One of the participants claimed that, “Having an environment where individual farmers have to compete against publicly traded companies and investors will eventually lead to a very large proportion of land being owned by large corporations.” Respondents stressed that investors’ involvement in the farmland market may also drive up rental rates or limit access to land for rent:

“When the Canadian pension plan took over Assiniboia land, my land rent from them went up 30%. In their letter, I had three days to respond or it would go to land auction.”

“I know of land that has been so overpriced (rent) that it has sat idle for several years. I really believe that farmland sales should be based on the markets, whether that is grain or livestock.”

Investor ownership of farmland is a risk to the survival of rural communities

Although the trend in agriculture is toward consolidation, respondents expressed a strong tendency to value the “family farm” and the rural lifestyle it supports. Investor ownership of farmland threatens the survival of family farms since it accelerates consolidation while making little or no contribution to the local communities. Respondents suggested that rural communities benefit from farming operations that have a direct interest in the community, the environment, and the economic development of the area. Conversely, when institutional investors acquire farmland, it weakens the social fabric of communities. As one of the consultation participants put it, “What is killing rural Saskatchewan is what I would call remote ownership, where an owner takes the benefit of the land while not contributing to the rural community.” Another participant said, “When more and more land is bought up by people not wishing to live in the community, it breaks the local community down, resulting in smaller and smaller communities with poorer and poorer services.”

Investor ownership of farmland re-creates “feudalism”

Many farmers drew upon the idea that the first generation of Euro-Canadian farmers moved to the Prairies to escape from a feudal system with a dream of owning something for themselves. Thus, ownership of farmland by pension funds, big corporations, and absentee landlords can be perceived as recreating a “feudal” system where a few wealthy landowners control the land, and those who work it do not (Beingessner, 2021). This type of discourse has been used by the NFU, which published a report entitled Losing Our Grip (or Serfdom 2.0) in response to investor purchases of farmland, in 2010. The farmland consultation participants argued that ownership of the land is critical to farmers’ security and autonomy. As the primary goal of an investor is financial returns, considerations such as the wellbeing of farmers, farmworkers, and the surrounding communities are all secondary to profitability. By creating a system of landowners and tenants farmers, investor ownership of farmland leads to the exploitation of the land and labour. As one respondent put it, “If investors continue to purchase Saskatchewan farm land, we will be sending ourselves back in time to the feudal system in Europe. Which is the main reason my ancestors left Europe.”

Investor ownership of farmland jeopardizes the stability of farming operations and farm succession

In the farmland consultation survey, 84 per cent of respondents preferred to own farmland, compared to only 15 per cent who favoured a mix of owned and rented land (Government of Saskatchewan 2015b). Respondents suggested that farmland ownership allows farmers to take a long-term approach to farm management, by extension encouraging sound stewardship and financial stability. Farmland ownership allows farmers to build equity over time, helping them to expand their operation through refinancing, overcome financial challenges in bad times, and providing a strong financial base for retirement. Farmland ownership also allows for intra-family farm succession, which is essential for the survival of family farming.

Farmland values should reflect farm profitability, not speculation

While there are many factors that contribute to increasing farmland values in Saskatchewan (commodity prices, low interest rates, and increased demand for food), speculation on future farmland values has played a role in recent increases in farmland prices (FCC, 2015). Investors are gambling that increasing global food demand and shrinking farmland availability will increase the value of farmland and its profitability in the future (Magnan, 2015; Larder et al., 2015). Farmland investors treat land as an asset in an investment portfolio, which increases the liquidity of farmland, potentially introducing volatility into farmland prices and farming operations. Thus, a common argument made in the consultation comments was that slow and steady growth in farmland values is important for stable agricultural production and hence, farmland values should be based on the productive capacity and profitability of the farm, not on speculative future farmland values.

Arguments in favour of farmland investment

Contrary to most of the consultation feedback, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and other investors favoured unmitigated access by Canadian-owned entities to farmland in Saskatchewan. Investors argued that ownership restrictions create a hostile business environment, limiting investment in the agricultural sector. Further, investors suggested that having a wider pool of farmland buyers supports farmland values, which benefits retiring farmers. They also argued that their investment activities allowed some farmers to access land when they could not afford to buy it. In principle, this could help new farmers to enter farming or existing small and medium sized farms to expand their land base through leasing.

Government responses

The government used the results of the consultation process to justify changes to farmland ownership rules under the Farmland Security Act. In October 2015, when the results of the consultation were announced, Saskatchewan Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart said:

The purpose of the consultations was to inform government on how best to approach farmland ownership, and the results are clear. The vast majority of respondents do not support pension plans or foreign investors purchasing farmland in Saskatchewan. They do, however, support our government in taking a stronger role in enforcing farmland ownership rules…These results will ensure that we make decisions which help guarantee the long-term success and sustainability of our province’s agriculture industry. (Government of Saskatchewan, 2015a).

The 2015 ownership rules prohibited pension plans, administrators of pension plans, and some trusts from purchasing farmland; required that financing for farmland purchases be granted by Canadian financial institutions; and imposed higher penalties for violating the Act (Briere, 2015).

The government’s decision contradicted “free market” ideals, which would recommend few, if any restrictions on land ownership. Yet, the government sought to reconcile its belief in free market economic principles with the agrarian sentiments advanced by the farming community. Indeed, the Saskatchewan Party used a form of agricultural exceptionalism to argue that it was fair to tighten farmland ownership rules. Minister Stewart said, “Our government understands that to many in the province, farmland is not just an asset…It is a connection to our history and who we are as people” (Giles, 2015). The decision to tighten ownership rules was a shrewd political calculation, appealing to the government’s rural supporters, as well as to voters across party lines. Although some commentators criticized the government’s decision (Johnstone, 2015), there has been little political price to pay for this contradiction.

The controversy over institutional ownership of farmland in Saskatchewan suggests that elements of agrarianism are still key to the “land imaginary” of the province. Specifically, the episode revealed a strong relationship between settler land ownership, rural identities, and values such as autonomy, freedom, and security in the collective imagination. Our analysis suggests a continued attachment to the “family farm” as the central social and economic unit in the agricultural sector. Many commentators and organizations drew a direct line between the financialization of farmland and threats to family farming. Additionally, our analysis suggests that most commentators and actors see the economic value of farmland as tied to its productive capacity, not its value as a financial asset. By contrast, promoters of institutional investment presented an alternative “land imaginary” in which land ownership becomes less central to farm success. In this financialized vision of the future, very large, efficient farm operators partner with investors in “win-win” arrangements.

Conflicts over government-owned community pastures

The dissolution of the Community Pastures Program (CPP) of the PFRA inspired diverse actors to speak out on issues of public lands, ecological sustainability, and small farm livelihoods. At its peak, the PFRA community pastures covered 2.3 million acres across the three provinces, with a grazing capacity of 250 000 cattle (AAFC, 2007). The program’s mandate included a preference for leasing to smaller operators to stabilize their livelihoods. From the beginning, ecological sustainability was necessary to support livestock producers, as over 90 per cent of the pasture lands are classified as marginal land not suitable for crops. Seventy-three per cent is native prairie (Phillips, 2015), an ecosystem that has been reduced to less than 15 per cent of its original area (Sawatzky and Piwowar, 2019). Many scientific studies took place in the pastures and CPP land was routinely made available to hunters, birders, photographers, and hikers.

Although the CPP was partially supported with public money, the program provided ecological goods and services (e.g. carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, flood protection) (Kulshreshtha et al., 2008) and was considered at the forefront of range management research (Arbuthnott and Schmutz, 2013). Thus, it was a shock to many when the federal Conservative government eliminated the PFRA in 2012 as a downsizing initiative (Johnstone, 2012; Phillips, 2015). True to the federal Conservative government’s embrace of neoliberalism and ideological aversion to government ownership and control of resources, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz argued that it was “something the private sector could deliver in a much more effective way” (Wilson, 2012). He ended the CPP and returned ownership of federal program lands to the provinces to use as they saw fit.

Manitoba was first to come up with a plan, announced in November 2012, to deal with the federal government’s decision. Worried that non-ranchers might buy up the land if the pastures were put up for sale, the livestock industry group Manitoba Beef Producers (MBP) convened a meeting with the provincial government and rural municipalities (B. Lemon, personal communication, August 3, 2017). Stakeholders created a non-profit association to oversee pasture management for beef production, with a board elected by rancher patrons. The province provided the association with bridging money to accomplish the transition. The Association of Manitoba Community Pastures (AMCP) now manages 19 pastures with more than 350 producers and is working towards economic sustainability. Announcing the AMCP, the president of MBP framed its value in terms of multifunctionality: “In addition to the economic benefits the pasture program provides to producers, MBP also recognizes the substantial environmental benefits in preserving these lands for grazing, such as protecting valuable wildlife habitat, wetland conservation and improved watershed management… All Manitobans benefit from this” (Manitoba Beef Producers, 2014).

In Alberta, the scrapping of the PFRA prompted the Department of National Defense, on whose land the only community pasture was located, to sign a memorandum of understanding with patrons. The agreement allowed patrons to continue grazing their stock under conditions approximating the status quo.

In Saskatchewan, however, the issue was not as easily resolved. With the end of the PFRA, Agriculture Minister Lyle Stewart immediately announced that his government did not want to own and operate the pastures. He assembled an advisory group of cattle industry representatives and in August 2012 announced the provincial government’s intention to sell the grasslands to patrons at market value with no-cultivation, no-drain conservation easements.7 Fears of large-scale private land purchasers surfaced (Phillips, 2015) and Stewart noted that the government had turned down potential buyers who offered to buy all of the land (Allan, 2013). Some organizations began mobilizing immediately. Nature Canada issued a public letter raising conservation concerns and APAS began meeting with members to gauge their feelings. Within a couple of months, thousands of emails were written to government expressing concerns about biodiversity and lack of consultation with patrons and First Nations (Saskatchewan, 2012). In response, Stewart committed to provide a leasing option to patrons, saying, “Saskatchewan farmers and ranchers are the best environmental stewards of our agricultural lands” (Saskatchewan 2012: 1700). This framing pitted conservationists against ranchers and tended to ignore the other issues at play, including the concerns of Indigenous peoples.

Joining with APAS, conservationists held a forum in November 2012 attended by former PFRA workers, ranchers, conservationists, Indigenous peoples, and the interested public, out of which the Public Pastures-Public Interest (PPPI) advocacy group was born. The groups expressed a number of concerns with the dismantling of the CPP: lack of representation in decision-making, desire for the land to stay public, and limited involvement of First Nations. Subsequently, the Community Pastures Patrons Association of Saskatchewan (CPPAS) formed in January 2013 to give patrons a voice outside of the general membership industry groups consulted by government, which they felt did not represent them adequately. By March 2013, Stewart had amended the options for patrons, offering them a 15-years lease and capital assets at no cost. Although this did not address all the concerns raised by stakeholders, the transferred pastures have since all been taken over by patron groups who have formed different bodies for managing each pasture. Unlike in Manitoba, there is no overall coordination or management of all the pastures as a system.

With the former PFRA pastures more or less dealt with, in March 2017 the Saskatchewan government announced it was scrapping the provincial pasture program (SPP), located on provincial public lands. However, unlike with the PFRA decision, the government launched a formal consultation process, inviting conservation groups to a meeting and engaging the public through an online survey in spring 2017. Respondents revealed a strong preference (60 per cent) for the government to retain ownership of the land; only 33 per cent were in favour of selling the land, even with conditions placed upon the sale (Government of Saskatchewan, 2017). Respondents to the SPP consultation emphasized the benefits of public ownership: public access for multiple uses, maintaining wildlife habitat, and prioritizing the environment over profit to ensure long-term health and stewardship of the land. These excerpts are characteristic:

“My grandfather, my father, and I have hunted in these pastures. […] I’ve always hoped I could take my children to these pastures. These pasture lands are a big part in small cattle producers’ lives. Taking them away would be detrimental to many communities. Is the loss of heritage, tradition, history, jobs, and opportunities worth selling to the highest payer?”

“We cannot blindly trust conservation of grasslands to a mixed bag of land managers, and we cannot expect them to make decisions against their financial interests for the sake of conservation that benefits all prairie people.”

Ultimately, the government opted to deal with the SPP lands in much the same way as it had the former CPP lands. They offered existing patrons 15-year leases on the land, transferring management to local patron groups.

In Saskatchewan, a coalition of ranchers, ecologists, and other interests had partial success in realizing its vision of publicly owned, collectively grazed, and ecologically healthy pasture lands. Collective efforts were not enough to keep the centrally managed, government-funded pasture program. Nonetheless, their efforts led to the development of new civil society actors such as the PPPI and new partnerships among groups. In 2015, for instance, CPPAS joined with APAS, the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation, and PPPI in support of principles including conservation of native prairie and long-term preservation of ecosystems (Phillips, 2015). In another example, the Nature Conservancy of Canada partnered with seven former PFRA pastures to develop conservation management plans and assist with management funding (M. Braun, personal communication, May 19, 2022). These types of partnerships could create more space for the development of a “multifunctionality” paradigm (Skogstad, 2012) for prairie agriculture.

The multifunctional nature of pasture land and its history as public land led to positive attitudes towards public ownership that came to the fore when this ownership model was threatened by privatization. Even in the current neoliberal climate, many rural residents and ranchers see value in the idea that the community pastures belong to everyone and that the government should be responsible for care of the land. The controversies over the CPP and SPP provide evidence that agrarian values such as support for family farms continue to be widely held in the rural population and that these values can co-exist with conservation goals. Grazing land, due to its multifunctionality, lends itself to an imaginary of public goods, public rights, and collective management.

The “Potatogate” controversy in Alberta

In 2010-11, a controversy—later known as “Potatogate”—erupted over the proposed sale of 16,000 acres of public native prairie grassland for irrigated potato farming in southeastern Alberta. Despite its great ecological value (Kraus, 2016), native prairie grassland has historically been subjected to direct competition from multiple uses. While there were some disturbances to the prairie grassland before European contact, the disruptions introduced by agriculture beginning in the 19th century and the rapid expansion of resource extraction economies over the last five decades have been ecologically disastrous (Willms et al., 2011). Only 27 million acres of native prairie grasslands remains out of the 150 million acres that once extended across southern Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta (Bailey et al., 2010).

The conversion of native prairie grassland into crop land and other uses is an ongoing process. In 2010, the Government of Alberta proposed to sell 16,000 acres of native prairie grassland to SLM Spud Farms, a potato producer, for an undisclosed price. The details of the proposal reached the public in early September 2010 (AWA, 2010), generating extensive criticism from conservationists, ranchers, and environmental communities (Mcmenamin, 2010). Following strong opposition from the public, SLM Spud Farms withdrew from the deal (Duckworth, 2010). A year later, the same plot of land was put up for sale by the government, but because of sustained resistance from the public and a change in the ruling Progressive Conservative Party’s leadership, the second attempt to sell the native prairie grassland also failed (Mcmenamin, 2011).

The Alberta Wilderness Association (AWA) was one of the vocal critics of the proposed sale. It developed an extensive campaign against the proposal, writing several news articles and reports to inform the public about its negative consequences and appealing to the government to cancel the sale. The other main actors involved in campaigning against the deal were Nature Alberta, the Alberta Native Plant Council, the Alberta Fish and Game Association, ranchers, conservation specialists, politicians, and members of the public. The media played an important role in bringing the issue to public attention. According to the AWA’s annual report (2011a), the proposal’s opponents criticized it on a variety of grounds including “the lack of any public process for a selling public land to a donor to the PC party; the secretive nature of the sale, the loss of irreplaceable native prairie and endangered species habitat; the water implications for new irrigation in an already over-allocated water basin” (37)

At the time, the Government of Alberta offered two main justifications for the proposal to sell prairie grassland. The first was that the land has a high potential for irrigated agriculture, providing opportunities for creating jobs and expanding food production. Alberta’s then-Minister of Sustainable Resource Development stated, “[Alberta’s] population is growing and there will be a requirement for food production, so we have to look at these possibilities and the options that are in front of us in terms of the value of land for conservation and habitat versus the value of the land for agricultural purpose… What we see here is an opportunity to develop an agricultural project that would create jobs and new investment in the agriculture industry in southern Alberta” (Duckworth, 2010). The second justification was that the money obtained from the sale of the land would be placed in the Enhanced Land Stewardship Fund, which is used to purchase and protect lands with high conservation value. The Minister argued, “I believe that there is a lot of land in southern Alberta, native grassland, that has a lot higher critical habitat value, and environmental and ecological value, that we could set aside if we had funding available to do it” (Glen, 2011). However, both justifications were dismissed by critics who argued that the ecological and social benefits of prairie grassland greatly outweigh the economic benefits of converting native prairie grassland into irrigated agriculture (Duckworth, 2010). The ecological costs of conversion include releases of sequestered carbon into the atmosphere and losses of grassland-dependent species (Foley et al., 2005), increases in soil erosion (Montgomery, 2007), and decreases in water quality (Moss, 2008).

The “Potatogate” case became an issue in the race for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 2011. During her leadership campaign, Alison Redford, who later became Premier, promised that if elected she would put an end to the proposed sale. Following through on this promise after her successful leadership bid, the government wrote:

We have heard from Albertans about the need for public input into the request for the proposal, as well as concern about the potential impacts on water and the local ranching community. The Government of Alberta is committed to public input on decisions and to ensuring our valuable resources exist for generations to come. Water use and availability continue to be government priorities. Accordingly, the government has decided to cancel the request for proposal and will continue to manage this public land in the best interest of Albertans. (Ministry of Sustainable Resource Development, 2011)

While commending the government’s decision to cancel the proposal, the AWA raised concerns about loopholes in the Alberta Public Lands Act that give government ministers great discretion in selling public land. In a letter to the government, the AWA noted that “the process that allows such public sales to take place with no public input is still very much in place” (AWA, 2011b). Later in 2011, the AWA and others jointly prepared a report that outlined several recommendations for reforming the government’s approach to public land including identifying areas of high conservation value where public land will be retained, improving transparency on public land transactions, and clarifying procedures to be used in public land sales. The controversy lay dormant for years until, under a different conservative government, SLM Spud Farms purchased 160 acres of the publicly owned native prairie, facing similar opposition from the AWA and other groups (Glen, 2020).

The “Potatogate” case suggests that, although economic justifications are often drivers of land transformation, social and ecological concerns can win over economic arguments when social actors successfully mobilize to raise public concern. In this case, environmental organizations, ranchers, and other activists put forward a compelling “land imaginary” that views native prairie grasslands as more than a bundle of economic values, waiting to be unlocked through development. Like the controversy over the public pastures, the actors in this case were motivated by understanding pasture land as a multifunctional landscape, valued by different stakeholders. This vision was in contrast to that of the government actors who championed the sale, which valued the land for its development potential, measured in GDP growth and jobs. Indeed, in proposing that the land could be developed if another block of land of the same size were protected, government officials implicitly put forth a “land imaginary” in which land is homogenized and substitutable.

Conclusion

Our case studies shed light on the state of agricultural politics under (financial) neoliberalism on the Canadian prairies. Each case highlights debates over how best to use agricultural land, how to organize land ownership, and how to weigh the competing values of land. They reveal continuity and change in “land imaginaries” in the prairie region, with significant differences across cases. In this conclusion, we make some comparisons across cases, examining the tension between (financial) neoliberalism and agrarianism in each and what they reveal about evolving “land imaginaries”.

Despite the power of neoliberal discourse, elements of agrarianism continue to influence agricultural land politics. In each case, various groups and individual actors emphasized the importance of preserving and protecting the “small” producer or “family farm”. These actors often expressed a concern for future generations on the land and the importance of connection to place. In conflicts over prairie grassland, many argued that preserving the public pastures helped to ensure security of access to land for smaller ranchers. In the controversy over institutional farmland ownership, there was a broad consensus that family farmers need to be protected from outside interests with deep pockets and questionable motives. Despite declining numbers of farms, particularly medium-sized operations (Weersink, 2018), it seems “family farming” remains a core part of the prairie “land imaginary”. This reinforces the remarkable durability of the affinity between “family farms” and agricultural land in the collective imagination from the settlement period to the present.

These agrarian arguments were often in tension with the dominant neoliberal framing of economic development. The backdrop for each of these controversies is decades of neoliberal restructuring, with financialization becoming increasingly relevant since the early 2000s. The liberalization of Saskatchewan farmland ownership laws in 2003 and the privatization of the PFRA in 2012 were justified by neoliberal arguments about the benefits of private enterprise. Yet, the evidence from public consultations around farmland ownership and the public pastures suggests that many individuals and organizations reject these neoliberal arguments, at least in their purest form. Likewise, our empirical evidence suggests that many stakeholders are uneasy about the financialization of farmland, particularly when it involves institutional investors. In turn, governments themselves drew on agrarian arguments when faced with public backlashes over controversies like that over farmland ownership rules. In practice, conservative governments were prepared to sacrifice neoliberal ideals for political considerations such as the support of rural constituencies.

Our case studies also suggest that a “multifunctional” understanding of agricultural land is gaining some influence in agricultural politics. In the controversies over pasture land, actors successfully mobilized a multifunctional understanding of prairie grasslands that brought together ranchers, hunters, naturalists and others. This is a promising development since it frames agricultural politics in broader, public interest terms, marking a potential challenge to neoliberal ideology. Yet it seems that openness to multifunctionality differs by agricultural sub-sector. There seems to be limited scope for a multifunctional understanding of farmland used for crop production. This can partly be explained by differences between crop farming and ranching. Hunters, naturalists, and recreational users are much more likely to access pasture land, which is home to greater wildlife diversity, whereas crop land offers few opportunities for recreation. Another key difference is that ranchers are more comfortable with public land ownership and leasing as a model for accessing land, whereas farmers are very much attached to private property. Indeed, the idea of land as property over which an individual owner has exclusive rights is alive and well in the farming sector (Mackey, 2016). In the discussion around farmland ownership rules, there was little to challenge the dominant private property paradigm. While farmers almost universally opposed foreign and institutional ownership of land, prohibiting these actors from owning land will do little to slow down the ongoing concentration of ownership among individual investors, very large family-owned operations, and corporate mega-farms.

Contemporary “land imaginaries” in the prairie West align do not align neatly with either progressive agrarian populism or with the resurgent right-wing populism observed elsewhere. Rather, they combine different elements in ways that reflect historical legacies and an incomplete rollout of (financial) neoliberalism. The “land imaginary” for cropland remains centered on private property, but there is nonetheless a strong association between “family farming”, community, and land stewardship. While it is beyond the scope of this article, future work could explore the colonial and racialized basis of the discourses that uphold family farming as part of the prairie “land imaginary” (see Sommerville, 2021 for a critical analysis related to Indigenous agriculture in the region). In the case of pasture lands, although there is no direct embrace of progressive populism, there is an openness to cooperation among diverse social actors for the common good, including an emerging ecological vision of grasslands as “multifunctional” landscapes. Our analysis suggests that, while there are some common elements to a prairie “land imaginary”, the type of agricultural land and the sub-sector in question can have significant impacts on land politics. Future studies should therefore take into account the differing materiality and sociality of relationships to land based on landscape type and agricultural sub-sector.

Our analysis has relevance for scholarly and civil society debates about land politics in industrialized countries. While there is growing recognition of the contentious nature of questions of land ownership and use in industrialized agricultural spaces, few studies have provided detailed accounts of local conflicts. We have shown how careful analysis of such conflicts, with attention to historical context, can help reveal the underlying “land imaginaries” of particular places. Scholars must take into account how global processes and discourses like neoliberalism and financialization interact with the particularities of place and space and the agendas of social actors to produce particular outcomes. In this sense, we suggest that “land imaginaries” are constructed in a complex social process drawing on historical memory and myth-making, social contestation, and politics.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Naomi Beingessner

Notes

André Magnan is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Social Studies at the University of Regina. His research interests include the history and politics of grain marketing, the financialization of the agri-food sector, and changing patterns of farmland ownership.

Mengistu Wendimu (PhD) is an Economic Analyst at Manitoba Agriculture and Resource Development and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Manitoba’s Agribusiness and Agricultural Economics department. Mengistu has more than ten years of experience in conducting economic and development research. His research interests include the economics of sustainable agriculture, farming systems resilience, and rural development.

Naomi Beingessner is a doctoral candidate in Environment and Geography at the University of Manitoba. Her research interests include property theory, alternative farmland tenure, and food sovereignty.

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